Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am looking at an adult, or sub adult ball and they have been feeding it live med sized rats. From what I have been reading I should stay with prekilled or frozen/thawed food. How hard is it going to be to get a snake this age to switch? Any ideas/tips/pointers etc?

Thanks.

>>I am looking at an adult, or sub adult ball and they have been feeding it live med sized rats. From what I have been reading I should stay with prekilled or frozen/thawed food. How hard is it going to be to get a snake this age to switch? Any ideas/tips/pointers etc?
>>
>>Thanks.

No idea how stubborn yours will be but what I do is....
Start by offering a F/T dangled. Some silly snakes don't know they shouldn't just go for it and will. I have a Children's that would only take live for the other owner. Took stone cold dead (well, not cold....but you know) right off the bat for me and so far hasn't missed a meal since.
But, should that not work I would try teaching it to take a live animal dangled from hemostats (tweekers are the tech term in this house) Once it takes them then start with prekilling and dangling. Then work to F/T. Works for me.
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Sonya

I've been trying to go from live to f/t by...
1.live
2.stunned
3.prekilled
4.f/t
...with little to no luck. I am learning tho, that it easier once you learn to tell when the BP is hungry rather than just a schedule. I seem to have the best luck by going down a size and feeding one live and then one prekilled.
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thx,
ru4pythons

I have to admit that I've never converted a snake of this age from live to frozen/thawed. I did do it with my younger BP, and he now takes them like normal (only a few months after I bought him).
I recommend feeding him one or two live meals, until he's settled in and comfortable. If you can stand to kill the mice at first yourself, you'll have more success in my opinion. Kill an appropriately sized mouse or rat, I just put them in a grocery bag and slam them onto a hard surface, my bathroom sink. Don't pulverize it, just kill it. Take a pair of long tweezers or needlenose pliers and dangle the warm mouse in front of the snake, hopefully he'll strike. My snake does this readily. After two dangled warm meals, you can probably just put a warm mouse in the hide box, do this for two meals. Then you can just start feeding thawed mice and I expect he'll take it.
All of this will take pacience and what some might consider cruelty. You may let him miss a feeding if he won't take it, instead of breaking down and giving him a live one. My snake did this only once. Anyway, I hope it works out for you. Post us about it if you do get it.

Taylor