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Posted by patricia sherman on November 10, 2002 at 17:33:20:
In Reply to: Re: Now you have me confused! posted by 2garters on November 09, 2002 at 14:50:20:
::If he is, in fact, taking four adult mice per meal, then he can take a four-wk old rat.
:Im calling BS on that. Just because a snake can eat 4 smaller mice...that does not mean he can eat one huge one thats 5 times the size of his head.
The post to which I responded specified adult mice, not smaller ones. Four adult mice is definitely a meal that far exceeds the volume of a four-wk-old rat. Have you bred rats? Have you fed them to your snakes? At four weeks, a rat is still only a baby, not even 1/3rd of its earliest breeding age or size. If it is female, it is just over 1/4th of its mature size, and if male it is about 1/8th its eventual size. I case you don't know, adult males fill out to over twice the eventual size/weight of females. The snake can certainly take prey thats maximum girth is equivalent in girth to 1.5x the girth of the snake at its thickest point.
:I have a 21" leucistic texas rat and he can eat 2 large peach fuzzies per feeding(4-5days)...but that doesnt mean he can fit one big mouse that = to 2 fuzzies in his mouth. It just means he can eat 2 of what he can fit into his mouth. Think before you post..
For a 21" snake, two large fuzzies could be appropriate (depending on the snake's girth). Once he's taking two large fuzzies consistently (i.e.: for at least three or four consecutive meals), he can safely be moved up to the next size prey. In this case, the next size would be a small hopper mouse. This is my "rule-of-thumb", and it has never failed to work for me: If a snake is consistently taking two or three prey items of a particular size, then it is time to move up to the next size of prey. If that snake is taking four items of a size, then it is far past time to move up a size.
The next size prey up from adult mice, is weanling rats (i.e: rats between 21 and 28 days old).
Tricia
