Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I have had a few snakes over the years, and I currently have five now, and they have all eaten frozen food. But I was just given a Ball Python that needed a home. It was bought by my nephew at Petco and is from Ghana, (probably WC?) and is already a year old. Here's the question, he says that this Ball will only eat Live Food. What do you think the chances are for me to change him over to Frozen Food now? What method do the Ball Python people feel works best for Ball Pythons? Dipping the frozen food in Chicken Broth first? Teasing it with tongs as if it were alive? Paperbag method? He has just eaten so it will be a few days before I will try.

I'm switching my Dumerils boa to F/T right now and this is what I'm doing.
1. Get him used to eating live food from tweezers(I wear a glove instead)
2. Next try an injured rodent
3. Just killed.
4. a few min dead.
5. a little longer dead.
etc, etc. gradually start offering frozen rodents scented with live ones. Make sure you thaw them and warm them(so it can see the heat)I'm doing something like this and in a month I got my Dumerils to eat prekilled, but I'm not finished yet. Good luckk with it. (You may want to offer a warmed F/T prey item befor you start this whole process just to make sure he woun't really eat it. I once bought a baby ball python that supposedly was stubbornly eating only live, first meal I offered it was F/T and he gulped it down!)
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www.freewebs.com/snakesandstuff
"Let us step out into the night and pursue that mighty temptress, adventure." (Albus Dumbledore)

My menagerie
1.2 Ball Pythons 1.1 Amazon Tree Boa 1.0 Corn Snake (and 9 eggs) 1.0 Dumeril's Boa 2.1.10 Bearded Dragons 2.1.2 Crested Geckos (and 2 eggs!) 1.1.4 Eastern Box Turtles 1.0 Northern Mockingbird 0.3 Chickens 2.0 Cats 1.1 Ferrets plus lots of mice and feeder insects and 5 Black Rat snake eggs

The key is patience. Tease them with the tongs as if it were alive. Depending on the feeding response, they may take with with no problem. It helps to heat them up with a blow dryer for a bit before offering as balls have labial pits which sense change in heat, so this will help the f/t mouse appear alive. Patience is key. Feed at night/in the dark, that may help with any stubborn feeders. As if it was from Ghana, it was a ranched baby.

So far I've only switched one baby over to frozen, and as it turns out he likes to eat it off of the floor of the enclosure rather than having it dance around on tongs in front of him. I thaw out the mouse, blow dry it, then set it on the floor of the enclosure, turn the lights off and leave, and he does the rest.
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-Diana
www.LunarBoids.com