I think Doug may be on to something concerning the smell of exhaled air from a living rodent. CO2 is a good possibility, but perhaps the actual smell of their breath is a triggering stimuli. I would even venture to say that the smell of the rodents breath is a scent used to track prey. It may even be the most detectable scent left behind by a wild rodent. Domestic rodents have long been removed from an environment where it is necessary to keep their scent to a minimum. The instinct for a snake to shun f/t domestic mice unless they are thoroughly cleaned is clue that this could be true. I have scented f/t by placing them in a small container with some mice of various sizes with pretty good results. Perhaps saliva from a live mouse would be an effective scenting agent? Just some thoughts.

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• Switching from live to frozen - tempest777, Wed Oct 27 16:43:12 2010
• RE: Switching from live to frozen - BillMcgElaphe, Wed Oct 27 17:43:09 2010
• RE: Switching from live to frozen - DMong, Wed Oct 27 22:22:42 2010
• RE: Switching from live to frozen - tbrock, Wed Oct 27 22:04:18 2010
• RE: Switching from live to frozen - tempest777, Thu Oct 28 15:04:33 2010
• RE: Switching from live to frozen - BillMcgElaphe, Fri Oct 29 09:24:51 2010
• Oh, and one more question.. - BillMcgElaphe, Fri Oct 29 09:33:17 2010
• RE: Oh, and one more question.. - tempest777, Fri Oct 29 15:35:47 2010
• RE: Oh, and one more question.. - BillMcgElaphe, Fri Oct 29 23:24:00 2010
• RE: Switching from live to frozen - Godfrey, Thu Oct 28 19:36:30 2010
• I agree Jim! - DMong, Thu Oct 28 23:30:42 2010
• RE: Switching from live to frozen - draybar, Sat Oct 30 19:05:44 2010
• Thank you very much indeed! n/m - tempest777, Sun Oct 31 18:38:31 2010
• RE: Switching from live to frozen - johnthebaptist, Thu Nov 4 20:04:45 2010