Feeding Hamsters to Ball Pythons?

I’m not sure where this really should go, but I need some opinions. I got an inquiry on one of my animals and the person is saying they breed hamsters asking if he would eat hamsters almost bucking at the fact I stated he ate frozen thawed pup rats. Is that a thing? Do people feed hamsters to their snakes? I’m tempted to not sell to this person because this is so strange to me.

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I feel like they would be higher in fat, but am not sure on that. Not to mention that hamsters (that I know of) don’t get nearly as big as rats. Oh, and most of them are mean and want to bite a lot so unless they are already dead then I wouldn’t risk feeding a snake one. I personally wouldn’t sell to someone wanting to feed em hamsters just to cut corners on costs.

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I agree, I might p*ss them off, but I think I’m going to do my best in telling them, I am not going to sell my animal to them due to that fact alone.

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Hamsters as a feeder are offered by numerous feeder companies. I have not personally tried feeding hamsters to my animals but I would think they could be an acceptable alternative to a rat. A hamster has a fairly similar nutrition analysis as a similarly sized rat according to RodentPro’s website (unaffiliated). For example an XL Hamster sits at 85.00g-174.99g as does a Medium Rat. This is how they breakdown numbers wise.


I would be concerned about a picky eater not wanting to switch back and forth myself because I have no desire of feeding my animals hamsters full time. But I wouldn’t dismiss someone that had a steady supply of hamsters and opted to use them as feeders. Appropriately sized of course.

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Thank you, this is good info to have. I ended up telling them that he may not switch due to the fact he was a trouble eater at the start of his life, they have not responded since.

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Fundamentally no difference in hamsters or rats. I have a few friends that use them because they have picky feeders. With the availability of numerous different prey items available to the hobby today, I generally advocate finding what an animal will eat and feeding it that rather than the keeper and the animal going through the stress of trying to force it to eat something it would prefer not to

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