Thinking that maybe my ball python was force fed?

[itzeppelinn]

I just got my Lesser Yellow Belly ball python back in January. She seemed an okay size. She's going on 8 months now and I weighed her last week and she was 367, I think that's normal. I'm currently feeding her Adult Mice. I got her feeding log from the people at Repticon, and they said she had been eating frozen thawed rat weanlings. However she has refused to take one from me. She's a feisty feeder and never misses a meal on the mice, however she refuses to take a rat weanling from me which makes me think they had been force feeding her to make her bigger in time for the show. It's just speculation, but I've tried getting her up to rat weanlings because she's as big around as them now but she refuses.

I feed her adult mice twice a week if I can.

[SmoothScales]

That doesn't mean she was force fed. BP can develop a taste for prey items. If she's taking the mice without being forced, it's likely that she has a taste for them or doesn't realize the rats are for eating.

Another note on the weight - her size also doesn't point immediately to force feeding. In fact, many breeders will maintenance feed the animals they are planning to sell because it's cheaper, customers don't want to pay a higher price for a larger animal, customers will buy a smaller snake over a larger version of the same snake, blah blah, etc. Example - in November, I purchased two BP from a nearby breeder. Both animals have been eating fine for me and are growing quickly with once a week, 10-15% feedings. I recently visited the same breeder and purchased three more snakes from him, all of which were born around the same time my original two babies were. The trio haven't been fed to 'grow', and are 1/3 the size of the two I purchased in November.

Some things you can do to help switch your snake from mice to rats is to get some used mouse bedding (possibly from a local pet store?) and rub it on her rats to transfer the smell. You can also bait and switch - offer a mouse and rat at the same time and swap the 'lead' prey item when the snake gets ready to take it.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Your conclusions make very little sense.

1# No one force feed an animal that knows how to eat, there would be NO need for it.

2# No one force feed weaned rats.

Do you actually know how force feeding is done and how hard it is with an hatchling alone?

Because an animal does not eat for YOU does not men it was force fed, or people lie it just means it does not eat for you and this happens.

[Reinz]

I doubt that she was force fed.

Sounds like she is addicted to mice.

You may need to do some tough love to switch her. Just skip one or two feedings so that she will have a voracious appetite come time for a rat.

I had two snakes that the previous owner said would only take mice.
I did something to what SS says in above post. I put some frozen mice in with the frozen rat in the freezer. I rubbed them together real good and left them in the freezer during the tough love. Come feeding time, they took the rats no problem.

And these snakes had been on mice for two years!

[DennisM]

The breeder said they were feeding ft, is that what you've tried? If so, are you sure you're heating them to live animal temps?