Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok out of desparation, I fed my BPs live rats all winter because all but one refused f/t for months. Now, no one will eat f/t. They have not eaten for a month now and still turn their nose up to f/t. My original male has gone from 400grams to below 340 grams. This male will only eat one live item per feeding and it took months to get that item to be a rat. I am throwing out more f/t than I am feeding now and its horribly frustrating. They all should be eating machines this time of year right? Temps are 88 degrees in the basking spot, 80 degrees on the cool side, humid hides with bed a beast always available. I keep them on newspaper now because cypress bugs were making me nuts. I have tried dancing the f/t, leaving it lay, warming it, making it over 95 degrees even at times, leaving it in the cage overnight, feeding in the dark, feeding in the daytime, handling, not handling, basically, you name it and I have tried it.

Any ideas? I have tried to assist feed my original small guy but he constantly spits everything out even a f/t rat pup or pink.

Take a live rat, knock it out and offer that.
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Dave

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They used to take it but half will have nothing to do with it, especially my original male. I end up putting the fk in the freezer for wishful thinking

If they will eat live regularly why not stick with live? Even if live rats cost you a little more money you will end up saving because you won't be throwing away so many F/T. F/T with ball pythons is not worth the hassle in my opinion.
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John Vandegrift

If your snake will take live you should never try to assist or force feed just because your snake will not take F/T.
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John Vandegrift

Live food here in this area is becoming scarce. Most pet stores don't carry live feeders and if they do they have a few tiny mice only and you have to lie about what you are doing with them. Frozen is easy for me to get and they are going to have to switch sooner or later unless I go out and buy a breeding pair of rats and wait for big enough rats to feed. Live rats for feeders in my area doesn't exist.

That is what I thought before but my Husband's allergies were not taking kindly to the live rats. I have to raise rats to get live ones.

I may just go pickup a pair and call it done with.

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

Hmmmm...it's definately worth a try but my snakes are in Vision cages until I finish building others (started building cages for my Borneos first.) I am not sure how I would do something like that in one of those cages. I'll have to sit down and think about this one. I'm willing to give it go if I can for sure

If you can get some live food in the belly first so you know that the metabolism is cooking, say a couple of weeks of live feed, you could always try feeding on a counter or a table, just something so that you can hide your "attachment" to the dead rodent.

Let me know if it works, I'm curious if it will work for others, or if mine is the only one to be duped.
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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

If this feeding issue has spread to multiple specimens, then this may be a bacterial or parasitic infection. I think a visit to a veterinarian may be in order.