Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My 1 year old ball is now eating small rats. He goes after with gusto but I take the rat screaming!!!!!!!!!! It's like my own little death camp in my bedroom! Anyways I tried a frozen rat, he just was annoyed, so I waited a week thinking he'd be hungry but again he was just annoyed.

Any suggestions? I'd love to have him eat frozen since I can buy quite a few at once, instead of weekly trips to the pet store.

And is feeding him once a week correct? I've read quite a few different things.

Thanks!

>>My 1 year old ball is now eating small rats. He goes after with gusto but I take the rat screaming!!!!!!!!!! It's like my own little death camp in my bedroom! Anyways I tried a frozen rat, he just was annoyed, so I waited a week thinking he'd be hungry but again he was just annoyed.
>>
>>Any suggestions? I'd love to have him eat frozen since I can buy quite a few at once, instead of weekly trips to the pet store.
>>
>>And is feeding him once a week correct? I've read quite a few different things.
>>
>>Thanks!

Feeding him once a week is fine, but now that he's older and bigger you can probably stretch the feedings to every 10 to 14 days. As someone on this forum once said - it's kind of like having thanksgiving every day of the week when you feed them too often.

As far as switching to frozen - there's quite a few tricks. Make sure that the frozen rat is good and warm, first of all. After thawing it run it under some really hot water for a few seconds to get it really warm, dry it off, and then wiggle it by the tail in the general front end of your snake. Obviously, don't wiggle it too close or too hard or you'll scare it. Your goal is to make believe that the dead rat isn't really dead.

If that doesn't work, try giving the rat a bloody nose to make it smell stronger to the snake. Use a knife or tweezers or whatever's handy and sharp and just slit the top of the nose open a bit and squeeze out some blood, then repeat the dangling process.

And thennnn if that doesn't work, try leaving the F/T rat half in, half out of the snake's hide in the cage overnight.

If that doesn't work, pretty much just keep trying. Shut off the lights in the room while you offer the rat, hide most of your body, try wiggling the rat in front of the snake while it's still in the cage, things like that can help too. Just be patient and sooner or later your snake will end up taking the F/T rat.

~jenny
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1.2 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, and Periscope)
0.0.1 california kingsnake (Tetris)
0.2 rescue chinese water dragons
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
1.1 betta fishes (Vicious and Killer)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
2.0 horses (Buddy and Sam)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
1.25 chickens (Ugly the rooster and his harem)

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." - Voltaire