Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, I have now purchaed my second BP. She is a 2 month old normal that came from a reputable breeder . The problem I have to deal with now is switching her from live to frozen thawed.

I know most of you will say, why switch her? The answer is ...My wife wont let me!!! LOL yes yes laugh all you want, but thats the deal we have at home.

How Do I switch a snake from live to frozen thawed? I'm sure there are many steps that I should take.

Thanx

Step 1: thaw out the rodent
Step 2: heat up the rodent
Step 3: feed the snake the rodent
Woah, did you catch all that?
I'm just messing with you. For the first offering of a f/t rodent, that's pretty much all you need to do. If she doesn't take it, you might need to start playing around with some other ideas. Once you get ready to feed it, get some tongs and move it around like it is alive, more than likely, she'll take it. However, some snakes just won't eat f/t and are better off on live. I have a spider male who won't eat anything but live. I've tried everything to get him to switch over, but he won, he gets what he wants because that's what's gonna keep him alive. Like I said, that's all you need the first time around. Let us know how things turn out.

Thanx I apreciate it

something that works for me is i thaw the rats to room temp then i use a hair dryer directly on them to get them warm enough for the snakes to take interest. i have used this on numerous different snake sp. give it a try, it cant hurt......

chris

Try stopping by a pet store and see if they will give you a little bedding out of a mouse/rat's cage. After you thaw out the mouse/rat, give it a little "shake and bake" action with the bedding and them offer it. I tried everything else(braining, container in a dark closet, washing with soap, etc) and this finally worked.
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3.2 Corn (Butter-Sunflower '07/Anery Stripe-Ripple '06/Amber-Jack Straw '06/Snow-Casey Jones '06/Amel Motley-Cosmo '03)
0.1 Baird's Ratsnake (Sugaree '04)
1.0 White Oaks Grey Rat (Tennesse Jed '04)
0.1 IJ Carpet Python (Cassidy '04)
1.0 Western Hognose (Samson '05)
1.1 Shepherd mix (Dylan 9yrs, Porter 4yrs)

It' not hard to do. Offer thawed once a week until they start eating.Giving some snakes a hide to srike from can help. Warming the rat up seems to help. I have used a hair dryer.(105 is good, your not trying to cook it) Grasp the rodent with tongs by the back of the neck just above the shoulders. A little wiggle and ...bam. Don't push the rat right in the snakes face, a few inches away is fine. They will eat eventually. Watch that they don't go to long and begin losing weight.
I have put finicky feeders in a paper bag with a dead rodent overnight, that seemed to work to get them back on feed.

Having said all that, I'll tell you I only feed live now. Feeding F/T is a royal PITA. Just my .02 cents.

Dave