Different sized feeder packages in "bulk"?

[OSUgecko]

I have a corn snake eating large pinkie mice and a ball python eating hopper mice. Are there any reliable online stores that sell mixed packages of mouse sizes? (I don't want to order 50 pinkies or 50 hoppers when both snakes are growing so fast and will outgrow the sizes so quickly).

Any advice would be much appreciated! :main_thumbsup:

 

[WftRight]

If you lived in Louisiana, I could give you some pinkies. (They did become thawed for a while when Gustav took out my power for six days, but I was able to run a generator enough that they only thawed once. I fed three to my girl last night. I think they'll be okay.) My only little one is about to outgrow them. Unfortunately, shipping them to Oklahoma would cost more than they are worth.

 

[OSUgecko]

How many do you have? There are no reptile suppliers here in my town, so I have been purchasing f/t's at the local ___co. They hike the prices up REALLY high compared to online prices. Depending on how many you have, the shipping might be worth it...

Also, do you have any tips for getting my ball python to eat f/t regularly? I haven't broken down and fed her live yet, but she's going a good three weeks between deciding to eat, although I'm offering food to her once a week. My vet checked her out and said she looked healthy and should be eating hoppers. I've tried wiggling it in front of her, dropping it in her feeding enclosure and leaving her alone for a few hours (I take her out of her normal tank to feed her and put her in a smallish box), etc, but nothing seems to really interest her...

I hate to try live and risk her getting "hooked"... if you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!!!

 

[WftRight]

I have only about twenty pinkies left. They wouldn't be worth shipping.

I know that there is a fairly active herp group around Oklahoma City. If you could make contact with that group, you might find someone who would be willing to split the cost of ordering some food online and split the packages of pinkies. If someone there needs to feed a bunch of little ones, he (or she) is likely to have a bunch of pinkie packages in the freezer. You might be able to work out a deal that would be good for both of you.

My advice would start with all the normal questions. Are you sure that her cage temperatures are correct? How big is she? How big is her cage? What kind of furniture do you have in the cage? Does she have enough hiding places? If you could post a picture, I might see something that would suggest a trick.

If you're keeping her in an aquarium, you might want to cover the back and maybe even the sides of the aquarium so that she feels more enclosed. Ball pythons don't like to feel "in the open." If you have only one hide, she may be using that hide, but she may not like the hide. If the cage is big enough and she is small enough, you might try adding hides. You don't necessarily need to spend money on commercial hides. If you have little boxes or anything else that could provide a hiding space, you might add them to the cage. If she suddenly starts staying under the new hides instead of the old hides, she might not have felt as comfortable with the old hides.

When my girl was younger, I used to feed her in a paper bag. I'd put the bag in her cage, put her in the bag, and lower the f/t prey into the bag. She associated the bag with food, and using a small enough bag meant that she felt secure in the bag. The other nice thing about that technique is that I could just close the cage again and let her crawl out of the bag when she was ready. She could swallow and digest at her leisure without feeling that I was watching her and getting ready to pick her up to return her to the cage. A variation on this trick is to put the prey in the bag and leave the bag in the cage on its side. To her, the bag would be sorta like a burrow, and going into a burrow to grab baby rats would be an instinctual behavior.

You might also try a rat pinkie/fuzzy instead of a mouse hopper. They are similar in size, and some ball pythons have a taste for one or the other.


Bill

 

[OSUgecko]

Thanks Bill! I am a part of the OKC herp group, just haven't made it to the meetings in a while. I am planning to go to the one this month, so I'll ask around.

I'll mess around with the cage and take some pictures and see what we figure out. I'll also try to feed a rat pinkie this week. Thanks for the great advice!!