Just switched from live to frozen/thawed; How I did it!

[Slitherous]

Hello all. I'm new to this forum, but not new to herps. Having been away from this passtime, (ie, hobby, business, passion, obsession....), for over a decade, I was absolutely amazed at how popular Ball Pythons have become, (not surprising though). When I last owned a BP the newest thing was an albino, nowadays it seems that the rarest of Ball Pythons is a normal...it seems that morphs have taken over the world.....amazing!!

Anyway, a couple years back when I decided to start keeping herps again I picked up a Cinnamon male hatchling from a breeder I know, and he has been growing and doing fine eating live mice since then. Because he has grown to near-adulthood now, mice were getting to be mere snacks with narry a bulge to mark their passing. I decided it was time to make the switch to larger prey, (rats), but having witnessed many an injury to a snake from a live rat struggling for it's life I decided that feeding frozen/thawed was the right way to go, but how to do the switch? My male had previously refused to eat F/T mice, but I thought that it might be due to my not heating the feeder enough, or??? The breeder I got him from couldn't get him to take F/T either, hence I just kept feeding him live.

I started the process by putting my snake through a feeding routine which included always feeding him in a tub, not in his enclosure. This not only conditioned him over time to expect a feeding when placed in the tub, but also reduced the chances for a mistaken-for-prey bite when doing routine enclosure cleaning. I started doing that decades ago when I owned a pet store and after having an employee badly bitten by a 13' Burmese immediately after cleaning a rabbit cage, (warm, smells like a rabbit...must be a rabbit...POW!). Don't know how many times I told that kid to always, always wash your hands after handling prey and BEFORE reaching into a snakes cage. Ever since that incident I got into the habit of feeding ALL of my snakes outside of their enclosures.

Well, back to the story; to warm the frozen rat, I laid it out to thaw at room temp, then soaked it in hot tap water, (inside a plastic bag), for around 15 minutes keeping the water hot during that time. I have a probe-type refrigeration thermometer that I touched to the rat, and after 15 minutes of soaking in the hot water the surface temp of the feeder was just over 90 degrees. I then took the warmish rat and placed it into a container which had previously been used to hold live mice, and which still had that scent. After a few minutes soaking up that mouse smell I put the rat back into the plastic bag and got it's surface temp back up to 90. Immediately prior to offering the feeder to the snake I blew warm air from a hair dryer over the rat which brought it's temp up to almost 100, then immediately opened the tub and offered it to my snake. To my delight, after some initial hesitation he took the rat. I think that conditioning him to expect a meal when placed in the tub helped the process, as he did show some hesitation, (something that NEVER happened when offered live mice), but his "conditioning" told him that this strange-smelling, warmish object was food, and the rest as they say is history!
My boy is busy digesting his meal, and I can look forward to not having to deal with live, smelly critters to feed him anymore, (not to mention keeping him safe from harm due to a rodent bite). I also look forward to being able to buy bulk frozen rodents, which in the long run will save me some money.

Well, that's the story. I look forward to participating in this forum more often in the future. There's lots of knowledge out there....and knowledge is power!! Cheers!