Reptile Forums banner

Mice or weaners

1K views 8 replies 9 participants last post by  1949_sam 
#1 ·
Recently been thinking about moving my little royal from adult mice to weaner rats. I have heard lots of people on here say you should do it as soon as possible. because rats are more nutricious than mice.

However, I have a friend with many years herping experience, who says that while that is true in principle, I should stick with mice until my royal is able to take much bigger rats than weaners.

He reckons that weaner rats don't have anywhere near as much calcium in their bones as adult mice, because they are not fully developed. Therefore, he says to stick with mice till she can take rats with more calcium in them.

What does everybody think about this? For the minute, I am sticking with mice anyway, especially as she has never missed a feed and she might take a while to get used to rats. But I am confused now!
 
#2 ·
It makes sense,
one of My Royals wont touch rats anyway, I offered her one yesterday and she looked at, sniffed around it then went into her hide, I then offered her an XL mouse and she struck it in about two seconds.
 
#4 ·
I was told to get our male onto rats as soon as i could.
He had been a non feeder when I got him.
When he started eating again, 3 days after i got him, I gave him mice as that was what he had been eating before.
As he hadn't eaten for over 6 months I kept him on smaller prey than he needed for while, small/medium mice, but as soon as he had had 5-6 food items I offered a weaner rat. He wolfed it down. He had never had rat before and he is 2.5 yrs old.
I am now giving him small rats and he eates them no problem. He is also eating some of the left over mice form the corns.
I think if he had refused rats I would have kept him on mice. After all if he's eating mice it's better than not eating anything. It just means feeding more often or giving him two at a time.
 
#5 ·
A weaner rats skeleton I would say is almost
fully developed and would offer better nutrition.
I have got all my royal on rats asap some at pup
stage and have had no problems with growing,most
of my 05 are near 1000gram.I recommend getting them
on rats asap if you leave it too long they may never
take rats and feeding an adult 3 or 4 adult
mice is a real pain.Some may only ever take one
feed per sitting meaning you will have to feed it
several times a week.
 
#8 ·
A hatchling Royal can easily take rat pups, and I always start on them as a preference. I'd rather not have to go through the hassle of trying to convert the snake when it is bigger, and I don't like the thought of having to give up to 6 adult mice every week to keep it fed!

All smaller snakes develop and grow fine on young mice, so I don't see why young rats should be so different - it works for me!
 
#9 ·
My Shelby is a little cow lol she'll eat mice 1 or 2 of them but wont take a rat, and yet my nemo will eat anything that smells like food even my fingers if he had the chance :lol2:
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top