I know there is a very opinionated answer to my question but,. I see a lot of snakes listed as eating small/med rats weekly. I would say I have 3 snakes I would feel comfortable feeding a med. And plan to in the comming weeks, But should I stay on med. Or back and forth between small and med.? The med seam massive compared to smalls. I know once they are mature adults, larger ones can take even larger but med. Seems to be what a lot of snakes are on. I’m using small and med. In general. When I get to breed my own prey I’ll feed the appropriate size to snake and throw out the idea of small/med. But right now the jump from small to med seems massive. Meds aren’t cheap either. So stick with smalls or jump to med and stay there or get meds in here and there till they’re ready for full time med? I don’t feed more than once a feeding per snake,. Would it be ok to feed two smalls to work up to it ? I feel like double stuffing can lead to trouble. Thoughts, suggestions. Thanks
What weight are the snakes and are they male/female?
700-800 female. I haven’t weighed a med rat, but size wise looks 3x the size
Depends on the size of the snake and depends what one calls small or medium medium.
I wrote a feeding chart and this is what I do with my animals most of the times there are exceptions, that’s something I also provide to my customers as well as a guide.
The exception are as followed
The 3000+ grams females will have a little extra here and there
I skip feeding for everyone every once in a while
Pre-pairing the females are fed a little more heavily (not size but frequency if they will take it)
I am not a fan of sluggish animals which happen when you feed them too big of a prey and I like to grow my animals at a slow pace and most importantly I like my animals to feed with consistency.
Note: I do not weigh my feeders, I have been breeding them long enough to gauge them when it comes to proper size.
I think that it depends on what your suppliers call a small or medium. I see on the chart that Stewart reptiles posted that a small rat is 45-85g, and a medium is 85-175g. The last supplier I used had smalls as 90-150g and mediums as 150-250g. This may be a difference between countries as I am in Europe, but it’s something to bear in mind that when you see a snake listed as eating x-size weekly, that may not be the same size prey as you are picturing when you imagine that size prey.
Over here I produce my own food. I give a variety of sizes. Some weeks the big girls get something smaller. Small/medium to me means, a small in the top end of the weight bracket or a medium in the low end of the weight bracket. If I do feed two pray items I take into consideration what they both weight and not to exceed the weight of what one appropriate pray item is. Buying from a vendor can be tricky because their brackets can variety and you might get stuck with a bag full of to big. I hope this helps.