texas rat questions

Captive care and husbandry.

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Paul White
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Joined: June 7th, 2010, 9:52 pm
Location: Amarillo, Texas

texas rat questions

Post by Paul White »

I got a t-rat a while back; like a few months ago. I got him from BHB, sold as a baby. He was on fuzzy mice when I got him and can now take large hoppers without difficulty. He's eating 2 mid sized hoppers at a go (8-10 grams each) a bit more than once a week (like maybe every 3-5 days depending). He's getting fairly long, fairly quick; I'd say he's already around 2' and still thin in build.

Now all my field guides listed the average size as 4-5 feet or so, but if this growth rate continues for even another 5-6 months he will NOT be 4', and I have seen a few that were much larger (including one that may have had yellow rat blood that was 7' ish). I don't get to weigh him much (he's pretty pissy and flighty so getting him to stay on the scale is hard). But last time I managed he'd broken 120 grams (from 28 when I got him). He's growing faster than my Florida kings did. I was expecting a growth rate more similar to corns or something.

I was wondering, if anyone here has good captive experience with these guys, what they see as normal sizes? this guy is a male. I plan to do a display tank for him, although I haven't figured if it'll be a naturalistic one or not yet. I'm also figuring out how to provide him arboreal retreats, since I know they're pretty fond of climbing. I'm wondering if small bird's nesting boxes bolted to the side of the cage might work?
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monklet
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Joined: June 7th, 2010, 4:44 pm
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Re: texas rat questions

Post by monklet »

I would guess that's an '10. Maybe a little slow, but not sure if that predicts ultimate length as I haven't had any slow growers long enough to where their growth curve flattened-out.

My '10 P. o. obsoletus X rossalleni are about 30+ inches and 120 grams and I've fed them on average around 8 or 9 days.

As for the "arboreal" hide. Simple wooden birdboxes fastened to the wall is cool. They like it, but the one pictured is hard to clean, maybe worse, tough to get a stubborn snake out of.
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