Rats or Mice the age-old discussion

I know you're thinking "Not this again."

I didn't see this as fitting 'health or feeding problems' or 'raising feeders' so I opted to put it in Misc Discussions.

I've read of many people who believe their snakes grow much better with rats rather than mice. I've also noticed a lot of people still choose to feed mice rather than rats. I'm about to put in an order for feeders (with any luck maybe my last order before I start raising my own). Obviously, once I'm raising my own I can raise either or both, but for now I am still ordering online. I figure for the same fixed cost I can buy approx. 1.5x as many mice than rats. :shrugs:

Cost-Growth Tradeoff:
Is the extra cost of rats really worth it? I know they are more nutritious, but I figure I would need to see marked growth improvements for me to justify spending the extra money on rats.

Is there anyone out there buying rats as feeders because they feel that their snakes grow more with them than with mice?

Is there anyone who tried rats and went back to mice because they didn't notice any differences?

Anyone who raises their own mice/rats is welcome to comment and share their feelings/experience on the subject.

Thanks

Here are my thoughts. I raise both mice and rats, so I also feed my snakes both. I switch back and forth depending on what I have available. I haven't fed them either one with enough consistency to see which one is really healthier as far as weight gain is concerned. I have, however, observed that with rats, they seem to poop a lot less. So maybe they use more of it and waste less than with mice :shrugs: . Either way, it really would be interesting to do some kind of a study to see if corns fed on rats grow faster and healthier than corns fed on mice.

Rats are really not that much more expensive when you consider, for example, that a rat pinkie is equiv. to a mouse hopper or very large fuzzy. Compare the prices for a rat pink to a mouse hopper. You'll find they're almost identical.

I believe that the growth is far better on rats than mice, and this convo has come up before in chat. I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I know that Connie has at least done some testing on it and believe that rats promote better growth. Iirc, she moves her stuff to rats asap.

Bobo's Mama said:

Either way, it really would be interesting to do some kind of a study to see if corns fed on rats grow faster and healthier than corns fed on mice.

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Actually, about a month ago I started to keep records of this. I weighed each of my snakes and then weighed each prey item before each feeding. I was going to weigh each snake after every few feedings. This would give me exactly how much weight they were putting on per 'x' number of grams of prey items. Then after awhile I was going to switch to rats and see if there was a difference.
Having said all that, after the first weigh-in and weighing the first couple of meals some other circumstances cropped up so I haven't been able to keep up with it. Hopefully, before long I might be able to start again.

Joejr14 said:

Rats are really not that much more expensive when you consider, for example, that a rat pinkie is equiv. to a mouse hopper or very large fuzzy. Compare the prices for a rat pink to a mouse hopper. You'll find they're almost identical.

I believe that the growth is far better on rats than mice, and this convo has come up before in chat. I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I know that Connie has at least done some testing on it and believe that rats promote better growth. Iirc, she moves her stuff to rats asap.

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I guess it sort of depends on where you are getting the numbers from and what you are comparing. I'm guessing you're basing your's on Rodentpro?

Comparing Rodentpro's pricing on the mice/rats that you mentioned does make it about the same cost. However, their estimations for the gram weight of each rat size is fairly liberal.

I was basing mine off of Big Cheese, which is where I plan to place my order. Their weight ranges for their rats are anywhere from 2-6 grams narrower, which makes for a bit more accurate comparison based on weights. Comparing a rat pinky to a mouse fuzzy is a 17 cent difference, rat fuzzy to mouse hopper is 15 cents, etc...

I raise both rats and mice and feed live or pre-killed. But to be honest, I feed primarily mice because that's what I have more of most times. The rats have tended to be sporadic breeders and then all of a sudden I'll have a flood of babies born.

I have noticed that growth rates did seem to increase once I got snakes, that would take them, onto rat pinks than those who prefered mice of a similar size.

While I've no concrete data to support this one way or another quite yet, I'm going mainly by appearance after a few months of being supplimented with rat pinks. It does seem to give them one hell of a growth spurt than if they'd stayed on mouse fuzzies.

As for adult corns, they really bulk up while on rats, and I do use them more during the pre-breeding season for females as it typically takes fewer rats for her to get up to decent size than if I were using mice. But their bowel movements are also more hellacious with rats, so I don't use them all of the time. More or less, just when I have extras or its pre-breeding time.

So I guess I'm a "both" type of gal, I'd say its 90/10 mice to rats.

I'm going to be placing an order today, and I guess I'm going to buy some rats as well as mice. I figure this shipment should hold me over until I can start trying to raise my own. And it will give me an idea of whether I want to raise both rats and mice or just mice. I'm hoping to be able to find the time to chart their weight gains with the rats vs the mice this time so that I can get some real data.

Thanks for the input

there is a site somewhere, with the nutritional values of them in black and white... will see if i can find..

N

Wow. Ok this is more leaning towards the snakes, for food purposes. But here, I'll tell you this anyways. My little corns has been thriving on my home made mice, and I make tiny tiny little "v" cuts on their backs(the mice) when I feed them to my snake. My little corn went from a 6 gram baby to a 21 gram beauty. And thats from November till now. Which is pretty great, and he's eating at 7 day intervals, and we have not seen a regurg since we got him. (We saw he regurged a lot at the petstore....well I did)

its similar to something i have been told, for snakes that are prone to re-gurges...

which is to slit the stomach prior to feeding, as the snakes gastic juices can enter the prey body cavity that much faster to begin digestion...

anyway

here's that link

http://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.asp

has rats from neonate, Juv, adult - mice the same, chicks... etc etc...

N

nerys said:

there is a site somewhere, with the nutritional values of them in black and white... will see if i can find..

N

Click to expand...

I appreciate your help, but I already know the answer to this. The tables of nutritional values have been posted and linked to on this site numerous times and I have seen them numerous times. I know that rats are more nutritious than mice. In an ideal world a snake would grow accordingly when given a more nutritious meal.
The question I was asking is if other people have noticed growth differences when feeding rats and mice, and along the same lines do they ultimately think it is cost effective. i.e. Do the gains in growth with rats outweigh the slightly higher cost?

Baba-Lou said:

and I make tiny tiny little "v" cuts on their backs(the mice) when I feed them to my snake.

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Again, I appreciate the advice very much. However, I heard about this a long time ago and I have made cuts in every f/t food item I have ever offered my snakes since day one with the exception of the very first one, which I forgot.

wow......thats awesome

well, you never know... maybe someone else will find it handy...

:sidestep:

N

indeed. I find it handy.

:cheers: :cheers: