Good afternoon! I call on the wealth of knowledge flowing through the forums!



I purchased last year a healthy olive python of about 3.5 feet, I think he's about 3 years old and seems a bit small for his age. I found out that it may be because I can't get him to eat anything other than live chicks! I've owned a red tail boa for 5 years and have been successful in feeding thawed rats to her since the start, but my olive won't even look twice at the thawed chicks I bought. So I bought some older frozen quail chicks, now he did seem more interested in them but never actually struck and soon after noticing them becomes bored with their presence. So now I'm wondering what tricks I can use to get him to eat thawed birds before attempting to move him to rodents (thinking that might be easier). I think the quail I bought was too big so I'm going to order smaller ones this week but if it goes anything like the frozen chickens I wont have much luck. I've rubbed small rats on the quail, 'brained' the quail and even tried live rodents (not scented with quail though) so I'm sort of going mad over this.



I can't get live chicks over the winter so I've got to think of something, any suggestions? Temperatures are at recommended levels, he's not in a cage that's too big or might make him feel insecure and I've got a hide box he enjoys, just some background info.



He's very active and very sweet, only ever strikes at live chicks, I have been able to chain feed a thawed rat into him when he's at the end of the chicken so I don't think he's offended by them, I don't know, going nuts, please help

[ Show Entire Thread ]