Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought a pair of baby jungle carpet pythons almost 3 years ago. They are healthy snakes about 5 feet long now. They feed on thawed mice. The "problem" I'm having is they eat mice and I want them to eat rats. It would save me a few bucks and it would save me the time of having them to feed them a ton of mice one at a time. I've tried several things over to switch them to rats but haven't had much luck. I've tried these things over a long period of time:

- offered a fresh-killed rat
- offered thawed/warm rats
- fed a mouse first, then offered a rat
- offered live rat pup
- offered rat rubbed down with mouse bedding
- offered rat soaked in water/juice from a bunch of thawed mice
- offered rat washed with soap and water, then rubbed rat with mice
- making my snakes real hungry by withholding food
- offered rat soaked with T-Rex product called "Mousemaker" (mouse perfume?)

I don't know what to try next. What would you suggest to switch them over to rats? Thanks ahead of time.

Peace,
Ken

I scent my rats like you've done by rubbing them with a mouse. When that doesn't seem to do the trick, I'll waive a F/T mouse in front of the snake, but just out of its reach. This gets the snake worked up, and makes it switch over to feeding mode. Then I replace the mouse with a F/T rat. At this point, the snake will usually be ready to grab anything warm that smells like a mouse.

Jake