Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a feeling that people don't often visit the "Ball Python: Dealing With Picky Feeders" forum, so I am going to repost a question that I posed there yesteray.

P.S. ~ I tried it last night, no surprise that the little bugger snubbed the rat. Help?
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~ Noel ~
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try rubbing the mice on the rats to mix the scent. helps make it smell familiar. or put your rat in a container that mice have been in. this has worked sometimes for me, but not always.

>>try rubbing the mice on the rats to mix the scent. helps make it smell familiar. or put your rat in a container that mice have been in. this has worked sometimes for me, but not always.

Thank you for the reply.

I feed f/t so rubbing a mouse on the rat is probably the way I can go. I will try it.

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~ Noel ~
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.

I've navigated our royal through live mice to F/T mice, and then to F/T rat pups without a hitch. Having said that...

First, I let our royal go a few extra days without a meal to help ensure he was good and hungry. Next, I waited until it was night time (dark) and just offered him the smallest F/T rat pup I had. I chose a small meal because I didn't want him to be intimidated by his new prey pal). The rat was unscented, warm on tongs, and he snatched it right up and has never refused one. You might try this as it worked well for me. Then again, our critter isn't a very picky eater...yet.

Best of luck!
Jason

>>I waited until it was night time (dark) and just offered him the smallest F/T rat pup I had. I chose a small meal because I didn't want him to be intimidated by his new prey pal). The rat was unscented, warm on tongs, and he snatched it right up and has never refused one.

Thanks for the advice. What do you mean that the rat was unscented?
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~ Noel ~
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That just means that I didn't rub a mouse (or anything else) on it.

I've always used live rats when switching them over.
I received some babies from EBN that were fed nothing but mice. I don't feed mice so I had to get them on rats ASAP. After around 1 month of feeding every 3 days they transitioned over to frozen thawed rats easily. Good luck!
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Greg Holland
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