Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my pastel ball only eats live mice. its time to get her on rats and i heard not to feed live small rats. If shell only eat live what do i do i know some people feed there ball live small rats please help me

I feed live rats and so far have not had any problems (knock on wood), but never just leave the rat with the snake. I always stand ready to intervene if I need to. That also gos for feeding anything live including mice, gerbils, ASFs, ect.
I had one female that only wanted mice till she was almost a year old, she finally switched over and seems to be growing faster now, maybe that is just my imagination. I also have a borneo that usualy regugitates mice but has never had a problem with rats and I raise all my rodents on the same pelleted bedding. Go figure.
CM

you can feed live, just stand by to watch over them like the previous post.

another way to get them to switch over is to scent the rat with some mouse beeding. let the rat stay in the room for a while then feed. the snake will think it's a mouse verse a rat.

Pitoon

I've never had a problem with smaller rats. After a rat gets about twice as big as a mouse I will stay near the snake cage to make sure the rat doesn't bite. I've never had a major problem at all.

I breed a small number of rats so they are pretty tame, your rats could be more aggressive so I would be careful.