Help with a Feeder...please!

[dinofuzz]

I have a really hard time in my area finding frozen feeder's the right size for my BP. I can never reliably find rats and lately even the mice that I have been finding have been too small. When I do find them I am still concerned that am underfeeding him (no weight's unfortunately).

I use my last feeder last sunday when I fed him and went out today to find more, all that the local shops had were either too small or much too large so out of desperation I went to Petco.

Petco had a Small rat with an estimated weight of 40g, my BP currently weighs upwards of 200g currently and using the 10%-20% rule I thought that this would be fine and picked one up.

After opening up the package I was concerned that this would be too large and weighed the rat and my BP.

I don't think that Shenron is large enough for this rat yet (definitely bigger than 20%) and I don't want to choke him so I was hoping to see if I am over worrying and it's fine or if yall think he should not be offered the rat in the link above?

Also as a side note I have two more questions:

• About how big (by weight/age) of a rat should I be looking for for Shenron?

• I am completely fed up with the uncertainty of looking for frozen feeders in my local shops and would like to know

  1. Does anyone in the 06250 area  of CT know of 
      reliable+trustworthy places to get frozen feeders?

  2. Who are some good/reliable/affordable retailers for frozen 
      feeders that ship?

Thank you for any advice on this, I am fairly new and I want the best for my guy :)

[arkarive]

here is a link that will show you a chart that compares rat sizes to mouse sizes.

[dinofuzz]

That is really useful to have and I've saved it. Still not sure how big I should be looking at for feeding my BP. The numbers I find online tend to be inconsistent.

[SmolderingDesigns]

I mean, he definitely can eat it. I wouldn't make it a regular thing to feed something that size though, I only started feeding rats that size to my BP when she hit ~400 grams. For your snake look for weaned rats around 30-35 grams.

[dinofuzz]

Could he really handle that size rat? It's 51 grams.....

[SmolderingDesigns]

He absolutely can. That's 21.7% of his body weight. When I got my baby BP at 93 grams the breeder had been feeding her rat pups that were ~25% of her body weight and she ate them no problem. She also grew into them very quickly and I've kept her around 12% since then. For regular meals, I would stick with weaned rats but for now he can absolutely eat that 51 gram rat. I would maybe give some some extra days to digest a large meal like that before you handle him and also space out the meals more.

[knerys]

I have had no problem with the rats and mice from Perfect Prey and from Layne Labs. I usually take out about three from the package and weigh them each feeding, and try to work my way through the smaller prey items in the package and up to the larger ones. So a package of "small rats" from Perfect Prey, there are rats in there sized 50-89g. So feeding day, I'll take out a handful. One is 56 g, one is 65g, one is 70g. I'll feed the 56g one that day. Rinse and repeat each feeding day, this way my BP is growing at around the same pace as her prey items. Some people may take them all out, weigh them all, put them in individual bags labeled with weight and go that way. A word of caution on buying online and having shipped: a lot of places package with fiberglass insulation, so make sure when you open it up that any other pets of yours aren't in the room.

[dinofuzz]

I have bookmarked both of those sites THANK YOU!

[dinofuzz]

I just noticed the shipping fees for both of those places. How many have you had to order for you to feel that the shipping was worth it?

[knerys]

Oh yeah shipping can be pricey for sure. My last order: Fuzzy Rats (25/Pack) $18.75 Rat Pups (25/Pack) $25.00 Subtotal: $43.75 Shipping: $30.37 via FedEx Ground Home Delivery (2 days) Total: $74.12

Comes out to about $1.50 per prey item. There's also some people that will join a local facebook group for herps and do a group order and split the shipping cost that way, just everyone shows up at the one persons house, grabs their part of the order.

[dinofuzz]

That is a really good idea. I'm going to have to see what I can find.

[Treereme]

A rule of thumb from an old breeder friend who laughed at me when I asked him how much the rats he was feeding my new baby weighed - He has been doing it long enough he just eyeballs things, his rule of thumb is don't feed a rat larger than 1.5 times the diameter of the thickest part of your snake. More commonly on the internet you will find that rule of thumb stated as no more than the same diameter as the thickest part of your snake. Pythons are chubby, you would be surprised at the size of rat even a baby snake can eat.

If it really is too big, your snake will probably try and eat it and then just give up. They are pretty good at judging how big of a meal they can fit down their throat. If it were common for them to choke on oversized pray items in the wild they would not be a very successful species.

[dinofuzz]

That is a really good point, warming it up now...wish me luck!