Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 1.5 year old male BCL that is about as picky as a ball python. Whereas my BCIs regularly chow every week, he eats once every 2-3 weeks. I understand they require smaller meals spread further out, but he went over a month w/out interest at one point and wasn't even in the blue at the time.

When he does eat, he'll eat frozen thawed adult mice but I'm trying to switch him over to weanling rats. Of course, he's not interested in the rats. In fact, I can put a rat by him and he'll shy away and if I then replace the rat with a mouse, he'll throw it back. I've tried thawing the rats and mice together and even rubbed the mice on the rats but that hasn't helped yet.
Thoughts?
Jon

Longi's (especially the males)can be picky. what works for me is getting them to feed on 2 mice regularly before switching them over. once they get into feeding mod and are looking for that second meal they spend less time "looking" and more time grabbing, so after they have started looking for that second meal I start slipping in the rat as the second and once they do that with easy then I switch that first prey item to a rat as while. some of my males while only take food once every 6-8 weeks even though I offer food every 7 days so don't worry to much at 4 weeks.
Micah

Warm the rat with the mice and leave all the prey with the snake in a secure secondary enclosure. Give it plenty of time, at least a half hour. If it has eaten only the mouse and not the rat, give it more time. Try this every-other week or so. Patience and persistence will pay off.