Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How do I do this? My girl hasn't eaten for 4-5 weeks now, and has lost quite a bit of weight. She only wants to eat live mice. Not going to happen, how do I get her on f/t rats? I beleive that this is what she should eat, as she is a large bp, I'd like to feed her one appropiate sized prey item, rather then 5 live mice every other week. When I first got her, she took a large white live rat, now she won't touch rats, alive or dead, she shys away like shes afraid or something (she has never had any bad experiences, previous owner had fed her live rats, she has no scars) Then later on, I tried to get her on p/k, fed her once white mouse, she took it no problem, I tried to feed her p/k mice again, she wouldn't take them, I then tried p/k, f/t & live rats.....nothing, she will only take live mice. This is a mixed up snake, please help me get her on rats, mice don't even leave a bulge in her stomach (she'd probably have to take 10 live mice to fill her up!) Temps are fine, 80 cool, 91 warm, humidty is 69%. She is alone and has 2 hides and a water bowl. I will never feed live to any of my snakes again. I suggest that no one feed live mice to a 4ft ball, it can become a real hassle!
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2 NORMAL BALL PYTHONS (CUJO & LUCIE)
1 NORMAL CORN SNAKE (KRATOS)
1 YELLOW RAT SNAKE (DUBAI)
1 WESTERN HOGNOSE (NO NAME YET)
MANY FANCY MICE & RATS

Take heart. 4-5 weeks is NOT a long time at AT ALL for a ball python to refuse food. She might just not be all that hungry at the moment. And I highly doubt she has lost weight in that time period. Ive had balls go off feed for months with no ill effects. So dont panic.

But the question is how to get her on F/T mice/rats. I can tell you a few tricks. I have no scientific evidence to back this up just OJT.

Try leaving the dead prey in the cage with her overnight with the lights off.

If that doesnt work try putting the snake in a pillowcase with the dead prey and leave that overnight. This has worked a lot for me.

You could try scenting. If she likes mice try putting a dead rat in a ziplock bag with some dead mice. And rubs the mice all over the rat, try to get the scent on it. Or put some mouse litter in a bag with a dead rat. I know this sounds crazy but waaaaaaaaay back when I used to deal with wild caught balls who were a hassle to feed. They liked gerbils. We used to scent the mice/rats with gerbils to crack them over. Sometimes we even got a little grusome and made a gerbil coat for the rat. Sounds ugly, but you do what you gotta do.I am NOT suggesting feeding her gerbils, just making a point about scenting.

You might consider warming her up just a tad. As long as the cage is large enough to allow her to get away from the heat should could handle a hotter hot spot. 91 is on the low end.

You have to have patience when it comes to balls. Especially if its wild caught. Hell, even the CBs sometimes are finicky. Hang in there.

However if she absolutely refuses any other type of food for a long period and it is obvious she is in danger of going downhill than feed her the mice. I know this goes against the grain of NEVER FEED LIVE but personally I would rather have an animal eat live prey than starve to death. 9 out of 10 times you can crack them over to what you want them to eat. But for that 5-10% of the time that it seems impossible I feed them what they want.

Make sure you worm the f/t up enough so that wile you are presenting it to them it will still be hot a nuff to mimic live . Being dead they louse heat fast !! I yous vac-seal bags in a bowl of hot tap water ,as hot as will come from the foset and you may have to worm it back up several times before getting that fest time strike , then it gets easier each time after . All so you need to hold the f/t with tongs or forceps on the scruff of the neck and hop it around in front of the snake to mimic live movement then with more success you can just hold by the tail and wiggle it . I have only not been able to get 2 not to take f/t in the last 15 years since I started feeding f/t and they were wild caught adults.

Everyone else, thanks for the great info (SHORT FOR INFORMATION!!) I will try those methods.
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2 NORMAL BALL PYTHONS (CUJO & LUCIE)
1 NORMAL CORN SNAKE (KRATOS)
1 YELLOW RAT SNAKE (DUBAI)
1 WESTERN HOGNOSE (NO NAME YET)
MANY FANCY MICE & RATS

I am having a similar problem with my two adult ball pythons. Both were excellent rat eaters (though the male didn't eat anything by live rats, a habit I am hoping to move to at least pre killed in the months to come). I only got either to eat at all by dropping live adult mice. As mice are just a snack to adult ball pythons and I didn't want to be buying 10 mice a week for these two (or breeding them ick). So what I do is after I offer the live mouse and the snake is in the process of swollowing the mouse, I feed in a fresh killed or frozen thawed (warmed of course) into the python's mouth, just holding it very still till he works his mouth over the rat's head. At this point I can just gently put the rat down and leave.

So far, this has worked quite well in getting the food into the snake. I am hoping after I do this a couple times, a mouse scented freshed killed rat will be accepted. Once that is accepted without any 'appetizer' I will move to frozen thawed. Not sure if any of this will be helpful but if your snake doesn't mine you looming over them while they eat, offering a rat 'chaser' to their mouse meal certainly will make it easier to get a proper meal into them. Also, it is a nice between step from live mice to fresh killed rats.

Offering a mouse sized live rat pup may help too, especially if it is scented with mouse litter or even mouse blood. Being small rat pups are not likely to cause any harm to your snake, but if it smells something like a mouse your snake may strike at it....a few tries like this may be all that is needed to turn him back to rats. As pups are small meals, you can still use the medium rat 'chaser' to fill up the empty spaces in your snake's stomach.

Comment to the other poster, a gerbil skin, I would have never thought of doing that with a really stubburn eater. I certainly hope I never will need to try that but deffinitely a good ideal for the future. Course, I will first have to figure out how to skin a gerbil LOL
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PHLdyPayne