Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I’ve always fed all my snakes live food (stunned), but I’m now planning to feed my 6-8 month old normal retic F/T (he’s been eating fine on live mice). I’ve never done this before so any tips/advise/pointers would be greatly appreciated. Some of my general questions are: how long should I thaw the mice out for? What’s the best way to thaw out a mouse? After it’s thawed, should I warm it up under a heat lamp? Do I just place the thawed out mouse in his tank (Vision) and wait for him to notice it, or do I need to simulate some movement in the mouse to get his attention? If for some reason, he doesn’t want to eat it right away, how long do I leave it in the tank for? How long can I keep frozen mice in a freezer?

Sorry if some of these questions seem very obvious, but I just want to make sure I get this right. If there’s anything else I need to know, please let me know. By the way, I just ordered a 50 bag from Big Apple Herpetelogical. Anyone use these guys?

TIA!

I'm not the foremost athority but, I always throw my mice in some warm water and grab the feed animal by the tail and wiggle it in front of my snakes....it usually works...if not ill leave it overnight and they're usually gone the next morning.

i dont have a retic but i do have 1 burm and 2 Jungle Carpet Pythons that all eat frozen. Top warm up the food i put it in warm water inside a bag. then i take some tongs that are only like 10in long and grab the rat by the tail and for my JCPs they take it really fast but my burm is stubborn and takes about 5-10mins sometimes during that time i just hit him softly with the rat to make him mad then he will usually take it.
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1.1 Morelia Spilota Cheyni - Jungle Carpet Pythons
1.0 Albino Burmese Python

I feed pre-killed to my retics but I have to "wiggle" it a little bit to get their attention, however, be very careful, when they go into feed mode, it can be somewhat dangerous, so be sure and use some sort of a tool to "wiggle" such as looonnngggg tongs.
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"New strategy R-2, Let the Wookie Win!!!"

first off try feeding your retic more then mice, retic babies can eat rat pups when they are just born so there should be no reason to be feeding a retic mice, to thaw a rat/mouse leave it in water for as lond as it takes until the rodent is thawed then offer it with thongs to your snake making it look as much alive as possible, first i would try to give your snake fresh kill, its not common for a snake to go from live to frozen in a snap, it usually takes takes some patience.....