I have a female that I just got onto F/T after 2 years of live and no goes on F/T. I don't know your reasoning, but living in the middle of no where is my frustration. Having to drive an hour to get a live mouse pretty much sucks...

...anyway, here's what I did.

1. I got her metabolism going with 3 weeks of 1 big, live mouse a week.

2. I installed a "feeding shelf" in the cage. Look at my "Too Cute" post to see the shelf.

3. I put her on the shelf and waited a minute to be sure that she was calm. Then I took a F/T rat pup that was at about 110 degrees from soaking and pat dried it with paper towel so it was not all the way dry.

4. Now here's the goofy part that I think made the difference. I held the rat in tongs and played puppatier (spelling?). I just stuck the rat up above the shelf so that my ball couldn't see my arm or the tongs and only picked up the heat signature from the rat. (It was lights out and tank temp was about 82.)

She took it within 15 seconds and it must have fooled her because she took about 60 seconds to "kill" it before she stopped and started to eat it.

Anyway, It has worked 3 weeks in a row now and it is such a relief not to have to worry about getting live rodents to stink up my house.
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Ball Pythons 1.1 (Morty & Mary)
Amazon Tree Boas 1.1 (Orville & Aeme)
Corn Snakes 2.2 (Bob, Sandy, Candy, and Tye)
Leopard Geckos 1.2 (Leo, Spaz, and Spot)
Central Painted Turtle 1.0 (Swim)
Red-Eared Slider 0.0.1 (Harold)

www.geocities.com/wink0083

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