We recently purchased a pastel ball python; not sure of the age but he/she is a little over 2 feet long and about 1.5 inch at the thickest diameter. We have had snakes in the past and they always ate live food with no problem. The establishment that we bought this BP at said they had been feeding he/she frozen rat pups. We waited a week before we tried to feed since we were not sure when the last time it ate was. No luck. We thawed, put it in boiling water, dried, and used tongs to simulate life. The BP seems afraid of it. We waited another week and tried again, this time we left the feeder in overnight and it still didn't eat. We waited another week and bought a live pup. It has now been living in the aquarium with the BP for 4 days. It is in a 55 gallon aquarium and the snake seems to live on one side and the rat on the other. The rat walks on the BP and sometimes the BP just watches the rat. I am at a loss. The snake has now gone for at least 3.5 weeks without eating. Should we put the rat in a seperate container and wait another week? There is a heat rock in one end and we leave a sunning lamp on on the other end for a couple hours each day. The normal temperature is about 80.