Reptile & Amphibian Forums

African soft furred rats, they're like Ball Python crack. I have snake in my collection who has been such a pain in the a$$ to get to eat over the past two years that I finally bought a few ASF's to see if it would work consistently. This snake has never ate on a normal basis, I have tried every trick in the book, and he was totally on his own schedule with mice or rats, eat just when I was starting to really worry about him. Since the ASF's, he has ate every single meal, zero hesitation. Amazing. 6 meals now, every 7 days, clockwork. I went from him eating 1 out of 10 feedings to him mowing every single ASF offer. Very happy.

So if you have a crabby eater I recommend trying it. Makes my life much better knowing he is well fed! He's the only snake I have on ASF's, so a little bit of a pain in the rear finding them but happy to see him gorging himself like the rest of them! The rest of my collection happily takes FT rats.

Same here... I now have 2 colonies of 1.3 that produce 50 babies a month. The only down side is that they are real slow growers!

I started supplementing my ASFs diet with higher protein. Not as a regular food because they won't eat it consistently and it can cause sores.
But in the colony that has been supplemented with eggs (just a cut up omelet) and cat food (30% protein) the babies are growing like weeds. My theory is that the nursing habits of the mothers tends to make them deficient faster than mice and rats get. The babies switch over to solid food sooner as well.
Just my experiment.
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3.4 ball pythons
1.1 kingsnakes
0.1 crazy cat
?!.?! ASFs
1.0 husband

OK so I have heard that ASF are great for picky eaters. My question to you all are after feeding ASF will the Ball go back to normal rats? Or are you stuck with ASF.
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Scott
"The most powerful person never has to use it"

Depends on the animal -- most of the time just getting a snake in the habit of eating on a normal schedule is enough to get it to feed on whatever you put in front of it. But there are some snakes that seem to only eat based on scent and if they are fixated on ASFs (or even mice) then they won't switch easily. Sometimes when you get those really picky ones switched over and they are good and fat and you are all stoked on their progress -- they go on their winter fast and you have to start the whole process over again the following spring. Wonderful animals balls are.
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Tosha
JET Pythons
Toshas Blog

Herp Medicine does not equal a bottle of Baytril - Dr. Scott Stahl

Yeah that is where i am....got my pair on FT...then had them on a great schedule and they were eating machines....didnt even have a problem switching them over to rats....but now bam NOTHING.
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Scott
"The most powerful person never has to use it"