Feeder Mice Colors?

[Kevin M]

A few months back I went to the NY Reptile Expo (As I always do) and I purchased my 2 months worth of feeders (Again, As always), But last time my normal vendor had no white lab mice, All he had were darker mice. Now I wouldnt exactlty say these mice were just black mice, They looked more like field mice. But thats besides the point, There werent white.

Anyway, Alot of my corns have now gone off feed, Or feed infrequently (Except for 3 of my larger males). It's my theory that when the next show comes up (Apr. 28th) and I buy white mice again all my corns will go back to their original feeding patterns.

So, I guess my questions are:

1> Has this every happened to anyone else?
2> Why after 6 weeks wouldnt my corns get "used" to these new mice, Or at least have a little better feeding response than this?

Thanks,
-Kev

[Rich Z]

You may want to consider that this might just be a coincidence.

This is breeding season. A LOT of corns go off feed at this time of year.

Rich Z.

[Solaris16]

Hi Kevin!
All my mice have been black so far and my little snake has yet to refuse a meal! Just a guess, but I don't the color would affect feeding, but it is possible! Good luck! Wendy :)

[Kevin M]

Rich, I suppose you could be right. Hell your Rich Z, You probably are right. :)

The past few years Ive bred my growing corn collection and while I did notice a decrease in feeding response at this same time the past few years, It was never this bad. Your probably right thought that its just a coincidence. I'll know for sure after I resupply on feeders this coming April. (WHITE feeders, hehe)

I only just to this conclusion because previous to this supply I had fed nothing buy white mice to my corns since I could remember.

Thanks for the guidance everyone.

-Kevin

[Rich Z]

My mouse colony has just about every type of colored mouse you can think of an it has been my experience that the snakes just do not care what it looks like. All they care about is what it SMELLS like. So it could even be that the mice you got smell differently to your snakes. Heck, baby corn snakes can tell the difference between native green anoles and cuban brown anoles!

Consider that every animal IS what it eats, they can smell substantially different just based on the type of chow they are fed. And the mice will also pick up the odor of whatever type of substrate they are raised on. Lots of factors to consider here.

Good luck!

[Kevin M]

Those are all reasonable arguments Rich. I should have thought of that also. Guess you overlook the obvious sometimes. Thanks for the insight.

Maybe I should just start my own colony. When I have has small colonies in the past I almost never had a feeding problem. Specialy since I used to kill the mice only seconds before I fed them. Nice warm bodies... Yum!

If I could only keep the smell down...

-Kev

[Serpwidgets]

I did notice two significant feeding dips in my collection related to food items... one was when I changed suppliers, the other was when I switched the adult corns from mice to rats. Some seem more sensitive to this, while others just eat like there's no tomorrow no matter what I put in front of them...

For the picky feeders, my solution was to thaw out a hopper mouse and clip off a small (about 1cm squared) patch of hopper skin and stick it on the nose of the rats. They tend to get over their "issues" very quickly... they don't require scenting more than once or twice, and the younger ones don't seem to care that they're eating a hopper with several missing patches of skin. :)

Hopefully you have something left from the old batch...

[Kevin M]

Hmm, Thats not a bad idea Serp.. Ive got to try that...

-Kev

[sue frederick]

what color their food is. That is why I try to vary the color of food to keep them from imprinting on one color.
sue frederick

[lynn]

I hope colour doesn't matter my Wilma will be getting her first small mouse on Monday and it's black, the fuzzies were white. Probably no trouble though.

[JakeTheSnake]

I thought they relying on heat sensing than visual

[Serpwidgets]

Cornsnakes don't have that capability.

[Iris]

Isn't it all based on smell? I don't know about everyone else, but I use chopsticks to handle the pinkies (I'm still a bit squeamish....) and if I put them on top of the screen top of his tank for a just a minute, Xavier smells the mouse scent on them and pops right out of whatever hide and starts trying to reach up to the smell.
I guess there's partially a visual thing too though. Once when he was really hungry (I hadn't fed him for a week when he usually eats 2x a week!) he saw my fingers outside of the tank and started trying to shove his face through to what he apparently thought were a bunch of moving pinkie mice. Good thing he was inside and my fingers were outside.

[lynn]

Well, Wilma took her black mouse, backward's, thought she wasn't going to get it in but it didn't seem to matter to her that it was not white like the fuzzies.