I am prejudice against mousers. Am I right? Or am I missing something?
If i click a morphmarket advert and see its a mouse eater only, I close it straight away.
Is there something I am missing or am I right?
Whats your view?
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I always take it with a very large grain of salt when someone says a ball python will only eat mice or won’t eat f/t. They usually will, in my experience. While I’m sure there is the rare ball python who will only eat live or mice or a certain color prey, I think a great majority of the time the person doesn’t put that much effort into switching, they try a few times, give up and then just give in. It’s like when people say their kid only eats chicken nuggets
We don’t play those games in my household. Everyone eats what they’re given
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It’s a matter of opinion I suppose. Dave and Tracy Barker fed exclusively mice for a very long time and they’re part of the reason the species is established in the hobby and responsible for the introduction of many morphs including Clown.
There is no such thing as a ball Python that won’t switch from mice to rats. The problem for most breeders is that they do not have the patience or experience to get an animals switched over. Given that a full year of not eating isn’t all that big of a deal to a healthy ball python, if you can’t trick them into eating rats, you simply have to wait them out. That goes against the financial goals of most breeders.
They certainly grow faster on rats but they’re almost universally obese within the hobby as well.
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If it’s less than a year old it doesn’t really matter what they’re eating unless the breeder is specifically feeding one mice because it refuses rats that badly. Plenty of breeders feed only mice to their hatchlings and that’s not a red flag to me. But I do have experience and am confident I can get a juvi ball python switched from anything to eating f/t rats.
In my experience, ball pythons less than a year old are indiscriminate eating machines when kept in their optimal conditions. The “picky eaters” trope is a bit overblown imo. Although there are the rare adults that actually are that picky.
So far I’ve only failed to switch one out of hundreds to f/t rats so I have to feed her live rats. I got her at 2 years old though. But all other adult “live feeders” I even got switched over with some work.
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I thankfully have managed to change over every one of my mousers…except my most recent. Lol.
My longest mouser I finally have figured out as just a very shy gal who is not confident enough to try eating anything larger than a small rat pup… But she’s at least doing pups regularly now and I’d prefer that long term. Hopefully as she starts putting more weight on now she’ll size up on rats a bit more too.
My most recent is a hatchling of mine who is only eating mouse hoppers on her own. She hatched in July. Every other hatchling started or moved over to ras super easily. She just refuses.
I actually picked up a small 1.2 group of mice just for her now… We’ll see how long that lasts.
Personally my problem is with mice in general. They’re adorable…but so much stinkier and prone to being jumpy and nippy than rats. They need work to get them to a similar demeanor as rats.
I won’t turn away a good looking snake because it’s only a mouser. It’s the same as turning away for being on asf. But I prefer that they eventually get switched to rats. Lol
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I have had a few baby bps that were still eating mice (mostly live) when I bought them but they were easy to switch to ft first and then to rat fuzzies later. However I do have one young’un that still loves her mice! 
But I have a few more tricks up my sleeve!
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I think it was a bigger deal back in the day when there were more cf and f1 animals that were harder to establish and switch. Nowadays most animals are coming from generations of cb rat eaters so in theory should be easier to switch.
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I feed all the species in my collection mice, opting for the more mature prey item, until they are of size to eat small rats. In my experience they have switched over to rats very easily at that point; usually the first try.
So in my case, it’s not that they won’t take a rat when listed for sale, it’s simply they’ve never seen/been offered one.
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I’m with you. I wont buy a mouser. I raise my own rats and I dont have room for mice. I am going to start one colony of asfs, though.
Someone mentioned something along the lines of “they get what I give them”. I went all live because I got a few that never had f/t and refused f/t for 2-3 months before I gave in and got them live. Ideally, I’d rather raise, euthanize at the right size, freeze and feed f/t. But, that didnt work out. Plus, it would take me over 2hrs to feed 21 snakes when feeding f/t. Feeding 35 takes less than 20mins with live. None of mine have an issue with colored rats, though! Ive never had white rats. If I have to raise an animal I dont like, they had to at least be pretty to look at - I have rex, siamese, silvermane, pied, hooded, and red eyed martens.
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I’ve tried every method for mine. I’ve tried and tried again, but nothing works. My bp must just be one of those rare ones that will only eat live.
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My first male BP only started eating f/t mice or rats after the age of 17. No idea why.
Still doing great on f/t at 23 though. XD;
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I have a girl that prefers live mice over anything but will do ft rats or mice if i thaw them then heat with a hair dryer instead of water. Even if i dry them she won’t eat a water warmer rodent so maybe try that. Also she rarely strikes i leave it she she knows its there and she will just eat
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I wish all my ball pythons would eat what is most economical for me to feed them at a given time and size. Until recently I could get jumbo (retired breeder) mice cheaply but that source has dried up for me.
I’m slowly getting some of them back on rats. I think I had a mass rat aversion episode about a year ago. Most were eating rats and then after a regular feeding almost none would. My theory is the rats might have been recently treated for mites with something that made the snakes remember never to eat a rat again.
Years ago you couldn’t sell an ASF eater but as more people have started raising them there isn’t quite the stigma anymore.
Here is a mouse only girl that produced for me at 2 years so if you can get enough big ones it can work out.
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