Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been having some trouble recently trying to convert 2 male and 1 female balls from live mice to defrosted mice.

About 6 weeks ago I convinced myself that i was no longer going to feed live, so i have been offering d/f every friday since to these 3, needless to say, they were not interested.

This week I changed my approach, so here goes........

I took the mice out of my freezer at 8am and left them out at room temperature to defrost.......about 2 pm i put 2 sheets of newspaper over a 17" heat mat and put the mice on top of it........at 6pm a turned the mice over on the mat to heat the other side...........10 pm...........feeding time

I got my forceps and "bounced" the mouse all around the tub.....imitating the pattering of feet made by a live mouse....... and when i noticed the head of the python starting to come out of their respective hides , i moved the mouse closer to them........still "jiggling" them about randomly......almost immediately they pulled their head back into their hide.........i then poked the head of the mouse in and out of the hide ..........WHAM........one at a time they all bit.......constricted...and swallowed their mouse.

Dont get me wrong, i have been stressed to the high heavens trying to get them to eat, and the whole process above took about 30 mins with each of them, hopefully with the next few weeks that'll become shorter and I can get my weekends back

So this may not work for ALL non-feeders, just hoping that it may help someone out.

Thanks for reading

Phil

i guess thats why large breeders feed live. makes since to me
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billy jean king
BugBusters

Glad it worked for ya, and Billy's right it's alot of work, but it DID work .

Quig

Next time~ Put the frozen mice (in baggie) in the fridge the night before feeding day. Feeding day~ do your laundry. Put the baggie of thawed mice on the top of the dryer while you run a load. One load is usually enough~ but if your dryer is very efficient (doesn't lose as much heat through the top) you may have to run two loads to get the mice good and warm.

Good Luck!
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Cheryl Marchek
AKA JM
Check out my website at:
The Red Dragons Den