What size food for what size snake?

[kitling]

How does one know what size food they should be feeding a snake and at what point should you be choosing to go up a food size?

We've got a juvenile olive python, he has never been a problem feeder - he loves his mice.

When we got him - the pet shop guys said 2 weaner mice a week - does that mean 2 mice in one feeding per week - or feed him one mouse twice a week?

We've had him for a month now and have been feeding him one mouse twice a week which always disapears quickly.

I'm going back to the shop to buy him more food today - and was wondering what I should be buying?

[jimmyd]

try some rats of a simialr size to the mice and see how it goes!, my olives are rat eating machines

[Ozzie Python]

it is hard to say without seeing the snake. i personally would be feeding 1 adult mouse rather than 2 weaners. Having said that i just changed my childrens from adult mice to hopper rats, and to my surprise his feeding response has doubled since i dangled a rat in front of him, god he cracks the rats hard.

I would assume most olive keepers would advise you to wean your olive onto rats asap so you have no issues later on with him only wanting mice. He will be a big snake and you don't want to be trying to feed him half a dozen mice at a time when you could just be feeding one large rat.

[DiamondAsh]

I've seen posts with people saying judge it by body size, ie: should be eating 1/3rd bigger than body thickness?? Or judge by head size ie: make sure it's going fit ... I try to judge by a combination of size and time it takes to swallow. Should be less than 15 minutes to consume food, if less than five then prey is too small.

To answer your other question, if you are feeding two at a time, feed one straight after the other.

[kitling]

Originally Posted by Ozzie Python

it is hard to say without seeing the snake.

Here is a photo of him - http://www.ecr.unimelb.edu.au/~hobbes/image/snake/snakebearhand.jpg

He is about 1meter long and 160grams.

But yeah - I've got a feeling that his current mice are too small.

I'll also be asking the pet shop when I go in to pick up more food for him this arvo. Maybe I should buy a mix of mice and rats.

Also - Diamond Ash - thats a very useful guide line thanks. The mice are dissapearing in 5-10mins

[Fester]

Going by the pic, mine at that size get 2 velvet rats every 10 days.

[dragon170]

Going off that pic I would go for a weanling rat he should have no problem getting them down as a mate has got one the same size and it has no problem.

[Aslan]

Kitling - Another (hopefully) helpful suggestion - roughly 15 - 20% of his body weight once every 7 - 10 days or so...

...I would definately suggest that his feed size is too small - for comparison, I have a Stimmie that is roughly 80cm long - it comfortably takes Hopper Rats and may need an upgrade in size soon...

[solar 17]

feeding mice to pythons is like giving lollies to a screaming kid [no one is going to win long term, l would SUGGEST feed him / her weaner rats [a good thumb rule,to start with] is a rat two and a times the width or diameter of the snake [so if your herp is 2cm across, you are feeding a weaner rat 5cm long ]and go [probably up] from there....cheers solar 17

[gozz]

i myself go by weights of rats etc 25 grams best to weigh the food and increase when needed . Just experiment and see how long it took to eat it and then ether increase or decrease prey size.

[dazza74]

go and buy some weaner rats and you will be amazed of what your snake can put down my three and a half year old diamond just started to feed again since may on big adult rats

[wokka]

Olives can eat weaner mice as a first feed, on hatching, so your animal could consume larger feed . It depends how quickly you want it to grow. I'll suggest that an Olive could survive forever recieving two mice a week but its growth rate would be relatively slow. At meter long and 160 grams he could easily eat a weaner rat which would be 40-50 grams.

[Casey]

When i first got my girl (water python) way back in March, the previous owner was feeding her 3 adult mice once a month, i kinda felt that this was inadequate for her size ( a meter and a bit) so i changed her to rats luckily i had a variety of sizes on hand and first off tried her on rats that were a bit bigger than the mice, gradually giving her bigger ones, if i felt she was eating too fast (under 5 min). As a result she has increased her size beautifully and has been shedding pretty reguarly, also i had the struggle of changing her from live mice to thawed rats.

I have also been told that you should feed a bit bigger than the head, or else you get big bodied snakes with little heads. not sure how accurate that is its just what i've been told

[PremierPythons]

You could be probably feeding him Weaner Rats at that size...

[kitling]

I'm quite happy for him to grow relatively slowly As long as I'm not hurting or starving him.

Next question - what does all this jargon mean? What is velvets, weaners etc...