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Alternative Feeders?

Allalaskan

Allalaskan

The Crazy Alaskan
I was just wondering if any one here has ever used gerbils for feeding bps?
I have a problem bp that will only eat mice. She will not eat rats for the life of her. My male bp and my male corn will eat them with no fuss but the female just WILL NOT eat them. I tried to start a mouse colony and has been a pain in my butt lol and would rather only keep one species for feeders.

I was talking to a guy the other day that told me that next to ASFTs that gerbils were Ball pythons favorite foods. I went to the pet store and asked for some gerbil bedding and I am thawing out a few rats atm and I am going to wash one with dawn and then dry it real well and then put it in the gerbil bedding and see if I sent it with that if she will take it.

Any way if it does work I may just get rid of the rats and mice and breed gerbils for feeders. I just have never heard of any one using gerbils as feeders so I thought I would see if any one here has heard of or used them as feeders and how they compared to mice or rats nutritionally for both Ball Pythons and Corn snakes.
 
PS, I wasnt sure if I should put this in the feeders section or hear since it has to do mostly with my Ball Python and not my corn snake.
 
I think people feed gerbils.

Have you tried scenting a pinky rat or rat pup with a mouse?

I have a few snakes that only eat rats. For whatever reason they had a hard time switching to fuzzy mice, so I gave them rat pinks, and then they were hooked. So I ran out of appropriately-sized rat fuzzies, and thought I would try rat-scenting mouse weanlings. I took a half a rat pink, stabbed a scissors into the belly/liver/stomach, then dabbed the rat juice all down the back of the mouse. Three snakes that hadn't eaten a mouse in over a year happily ate mice, and then repeated on the next feeding, one with no scenting.

Worth a try, only in reverse, maybe??
 
The only thing I have heard or read that if you do feed them gerbils, they will most likely only eat gerbils and refuse all other food like mice or rats! Gerbils are way more expensive overall, but if you are going to breed the gerbils I dont see it being a problem at all! I have heard its one of their favorite foods, its like a big fat juicey steak for us! LOL
 
Nanci said:
I think people feed gerbils.

Have you tried scenting a pinky rat or rat pup with a mouse?

I have a few snakes that only eat rats. For whatever reason they had a hard time switching to fuzzy mice, so I gave them rat pinks, and then they were hooked. So I ran out of appropriately-sized rat fuzzies, and thought I would try rat-scenting mouse weanlings. I took a half a rat pink, stabbed a scissors into the belly/liver/stomach, then dabbed the rat juice all down the back of the mouse. Three snakes that hadn't eaten a mouse in over a year happily ate mice, and then repeated on the next feeding, one with no scenting.

Worth a try, only in reverse, maybe??
Click to expand...

I tried washing a rat pup with just dawn then drying, leaving it wet, doing both and also braining. I also tried the same thing but put it in a bunch of mouse bedding, and also in with a f/t mouse that was fully thawed. I didnt try any of the fluids from the mouse though so I may just try that too. I have 2 rat pups that are thawed but haven't fed them just yet so I may just get one of the f/t mice and thaw it out and try opening it up and rubbing that on the rat and see if she takes it.

As far as them staying only to gerbils, at this point the male will eat ANY THING I swear lol. He will go after my fingers if I dangle them in front of him even (I found that out the hard way while cleaning, wasnt paying attention to where my finger was and BAM lol) so im not to concerned about him, but seth has proven to be a bit picky at times as far as when he wants to eat but have had no problem with him eating mice or rats.

I think I will try the mouse juice scenting and see if she takes it that way. Im just at the point where I want my snakes to be eating the same thing so I can just get one decent sized colony and not have to buy feeders lol.

Up here a single mouse is $2.49 each, and rats $7.99 at the cheapest I can find. And since I know bps take around 5-6 mice to feed when full grown vs 1 rat I was hoping to breed my own rats and feed them those instead of having to buy feeders all the time.

Now as far as gerbils go, are they any difficult to breed or are they fairly easy? I am hoping I dont have to go that route but atm im trying to take in all my possibilities.
 
I wouldnt think they would be any harder than any other rodent! They are active during the day until mice, rats and hamsters! I know they get pregnant easy by having them in a classroom in the same cage. I sold the babies once they were old enough to a local pet shop and seperated the adults! So I only had that one experience with them!
 
I would start up an ASF group. My ball python LOVES them. It's like crack for them, they'll never refuse them, and, they have tons of babies every litter and don't stink. Gerbils would work too if you breed them yourself, I just wouldn't want to pay for them every week. ASFs are not too expensive for me here, as someone down the road breeds them.
 
I've heard that about ASF's (being crack to the snakes) but they are nasty buggers & will bite. Not docile like mice or regular rats.

Whether it's ASF's or Gerbils, or whatever, if it's something not found as readily, if you can breed your own, that will help.
 
Well I believe it is Illegal to own ASFs in ALaska since we have a strict law of
"White, Red eyed ONLY rats", and since they are often labeled as rats I dont think I can legally have any shipped up.

Gerbils on the other hand are easy for me to get. The only catch is they are like $30 a piece at the local pet store so its not something I would want to buy for feeding every week but if im breeding them I wouldnt mind putting some money into IF my bp will eat them haha. Any ways im thawing a mouse right now, should be ready in a few mins I think,see if THAT scent try works.
 
nwheather said:
I've heard that about ASF's (being crack to the snakes) but they are nasty buggers & will bite. Not docile like mice or regular rats.

Whether it's ASF's or Gerbils, or whatever, if it's something not found as readily, if you can breed your own, that will help.
Click to expand...

It depends what line you get them from. The ones that I get are just as docile as my mice, and you can just reach in and grab their babies from them.

It's too bad ASFs are illegal up there! (I thought reptiles were too?) If gerbils are easy for you to get ahold of I'd definitely go for it.
 
AliCat37 said:
It depends what line you get them from. The ones that I get are just as docile as my mice, and you can just reach in and grab their babies from them.

It's too bad ASFs are illegal up there! (I thought reptiles were too?) If gerbils are easy for you to get ahold of I'd definitely go for it.
Click to expand...

Atm only venomous reptiles are Illegal to own up here. I could go get a croc if I wanted one.

Rats have caused some pretty big problums in some parts of the state so that is why the law is set the way it is.
 
well, she wouldnt eat the scented rat pup. I think Im going to wait for the next feeding and try scenting one with the gerbil bedding and see if that works.
 
Allalaskan said:
Atm only venomous reptiles are Illegal to own up here. I could go get a croc if I wanted one.

Rats have caused some pretty big problums in some parts of the state so that is why the law is set the way it is.
Click to expand...

Interesting! I understand about the rats though. Idk where I heard that reptiles were illegal, I was like.. they can't survive if they get out? Makes sense that venomous are illegal though.
 
Ya I looked it up one day because I was curios which ones were Legal and Illegal to own and from what I read it stated that only the illegal ones were venomous, they are not allowed at all.

The rats actually have caused big problems in Anchorage and in some of the coastal Islands. I guess a few years ago a family was raising and breeding rats. They had something like 3000 of them. Well something happened (I sounded to me like sabotage) and they all got loose while they were on vacation and it took the city a lot of money to round up most of them (not all of them were recovered) and caused some problems in that neighborhood. Also there are a couple coastal Islands, one in particular that had rats get on them from ship recks. The one Island ( I would have to look it up, its actually on ALaska Department of Fish and Games website where I read this) the rats impacted so bad the island use to be home to thousands of birds that came there to nest, over something like 5 years those birds that nested on that island were killed off by the rats and now on that particular island the ONLY animal that can be found are rats. Its for those reasons that they make them Illegal. They allow Albino White, red eyed rats because in the summer they stand out like a sore thumb and will most likely be eaten by predators where a brown rat can blend in and camouflage great up here.

Any way theres a little FYI on the rat thing :D
 
I've always been confused why they would choose albino rats to be legal, in the winter they are going to blend in significantly better than any other color of rat. And its winter here a lot more than it is summer. There are a lot of colored rats in the state, if you know who to ask.

I'm surprised you pay so much for small rodents down there, they are cheaper up here in Fairbanks.
 
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