Looking for a little help here. My dumerils is only about 18 inches long and has been a pain in the butt to get to eat from day 1. When I first got the snake from and online/phone purchase it was sheading in the container. (I picked it up from a local retailer thats a friend) I was told that it was eating rat pups from day 1 however months went by and the snke would not eat. I purchased the snake in oct 2007. Months went by and the snake would not eat. I was told that pending how much "yolk" it retained from the hatching would determin how long it would go before the snake would decide to eat. # months went by bringing the snake up to jan 2008 and still refused to eat. I was keeping the snake in a 20 long fish tank with approx 3" of aspen substrate. There was various hide caves and leaves etc... The snake however would always drink like a fish. The snake was always sheading in 1 continous piece, basicaly everything it should have been doing as a normal snake. I was not seeing any loss in body weight as well. It eventually got to the point that I had to force feed some pinkey mice in fear of survival of the snake. Everytime I would put rat pups in the tank nothing. I tried every method possible. Feeding with heat, without heat, in the tank, seperate container, in the dark, in the light, and every other possible combination of the previous stated methods. I had been having to force feed till july 2008 till I went to the white plains show and spoke to several breeders. All the breeders that I spoke to stated that the snake was in way to large of an enclosure and that the snake was feeling "lost" and "scared". They all recomended getting a 5 1/2 gallon tank and filling it with about 3-4" of aspen along with blacking out 3 sides of the tank and leaving the snake alone for 2 weks and try again. In deperate measures I purchased a rat pup and just left it in the tank in mid-afternoon. The rat pup did its rat pup thing for hours on end and still no luck. I did the big no no and left it in the tank overnight. Well good thing is the rat pup was gone in the morning. 3 weeks went by and the snake finally ate again in front of me. Is there anything that I can do to get beter eating habbits out of the snake? Rat pups are fine I guess but its a real pain in the butt to have to track them down where I live. I would love to get the snake on mice if possible. Is there any way to do this and if so how do you do it? The snake is only taking 1 rat pup per feeding.

Thanks for all the help in advance

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