Which Sized Rats and Mice Should I Be Feeding to My Snake?

This is a question which we get asked a lot and is an area where a lot of people make mistakes or are confused.

The common mistake is to feed prey items which are much too small. Many people look at the size of their snake's head and assume that this will limit the size of the food it can eat. This is an incorrect assumption, especially when it comes to heavy bodied snakes such as royal pythons. A snake's jaws can stretch to many times the size of the snake's head and they can therefore eat much bigger prey items than you would think.

So how big should the rats and mice you feed be? Generally, the way to work this out is to look at the widest part of the snake and then select a rodent that is one and a half times bigger than this. So, if the widest part of your snake is 2cm, you should be feeding a rodent that is 3cm wide. The length of the rodents you feed does not matter.

Selecting the size is not a precise art, and your snake will probably happily eat rodents which are smaller and bigger than one and a half times their body width. In the wild they eat what comes along and sometimes this will be bigger, sometimes smaller. The one and a half times rule is a good guideline for safely feeding your snake without underfeeding him.

Another way to tell if your snake is ready to move onto a bigger prey item, is to watch him feed. If the rodent is the right size, it should take him a good few minutes to get it down, and you should be able to see a visible lump in his stomach when he has finished eating. If your snake is eating his food in seconds, or you can't see a lump after feeding, your prey items are too small, and you need to move up a size.

Another related issue is: how often do I feed my snake? Often, you can tell when a snake is hungry, because it will be out looking for food. Whilst a snake is growing, usually the first three years of its life, it is difficult to overfeed as they will turn any food into growth. We like to feed baby snakes at least twice a week, and then gradually reduce this so that by the time they have stopped growing you are feeding one appropriately sized rodent once a week.

It is important that once your snake has stopped growing, you do not over feed them as snakes can and do get fat and this both spoils their appearance, and potentially shortens their lifespan. These rules apply to most commonly kept snakes (i.e. colubrids and small pythons) but there are some exceptions. For instance, with large snakes like boas and large pythons feeding a very large prey item once every three weeks may be plenty. Always make sure to research the animals you are keeping yourself, and if you have any questions about feeding, give us a call, we are always happy to help.