Is My Ball Python Ready For Rats?

[Bigshow]

Greetings all,

I have a 2 year old male Ball Python who has been growing fast and has gotten to approximately 2 1/2 to 3 feet long. He has been happily eating large mice, about one per week for a long time now and I was just curious if he is ready for small rats?

I purchased a couple of small frozen rats from Petsmart last week and tried to offer him one last week. At first he seemed interested...his tongue started to flicker rapidly and he started to get his strike pose on and began approaching the rat. He then appeared a bit confused. He tried approaching the head from the left, and then from the right, then backed off and became disinterested once he realized it wasn't his usual meal.

So I didn't feed him for another week hoping he'd be hungry enough to go for it last night, but the same thing happened, he just didn't go for it. So I bagged him up with the rat in a pillow case over night with half of the bag laying on his heating pad so he had a warm place to curl up. In the morning, I got him out and the rat was still there. From its appearance, it looked like he made an attempt on it over night but regurgitated it. Ended up having to throw it away. I still have one more in the freezer that I don't want to waste so I was hoping for some feedback from people.

I read on a few other boards about people thawing out a mouse with the rat to get the mouse smell all over it before offering it to the snake. Others advised to start the process by feeding the snake two mice in one feeding session for a few weeks then offer the snake one mouse and then the rat while he's still in strike mode. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Adam Chandler]

To put things in perspective the first thing I off hatching Ball Python's for their first meal are newborn "pink" rats. So your BP is definitely ready for a rat of some size. The trick is getting him to recognize the rat as food. Like you mentioned in your post I've had the best luck with "scenting" the rat I am trying to feed with a mouse to try get your BP to strike it.

[Bigshow]

Sort of a follow-up question...say I thaw out a frozen rat and try to feed it to him, but he doesn't want it. How many times can it be re-frozen and re-thawed before it would be considered inedible? The one I threw out last night was thawed out for almost 12 hours so I knew that one couldn't be re-frozen, but in a situation where its just finished thawing and then refrozen 10 minutes later. Not sure if there is any sort of "rule of thumb" on this sort of thing.

[LotsaBalls]

Not a good idea to refreez anything. Depending on price buy live, prekill if you feel you need to then freez if not eaten.

[wax32]

I've been refreezing mice and rats for years. I only refreeze once. The refrozen mouse/rat is offered to a snake that I KNOW will eat it.

As far as food size goes, my baby bps got adult mice after just a few feedings of hopper mice. Once the snakes got to 300 grams I started giving them small rats. My bps that are about six months old are eating 40-50+ gram rats.