Hi, I'm new here, just found this helpful site. I am also new to ballpythons, although I've been doing a lot of research before acquiring one.

Last week I got a bunch of babies, captive born, in Sweden, I imported them to Finland where I live (neighbour country, Scandinavia). I got 8.8 babies, of which I have 5.4 left. 9 babies that is. They're very young, around one month old. I keep them in rubbermaids, 2-4 gallons. There are three males in a 4-gallon rubbermaid, two females in another, two males in a 2-gallon rubbermaid and two females in a 2-gallon... So, four rubbermaids, 9 snakes. I intend to separate them as soon as possible.

My actual questions concern eating. They have been fed live small mice and the breeder suggest I continue this. I stronly oppose live feeding though, and was wondering if it's common practice to start off ball juveniles with live prey? The breeder claims only about 10% of ball python hatchlings accept F/T or pre-killed. Is this true? I'd like to switch the babies to F/T as soon as possible and I'm asking for advice on how to do so. The breeder also told me to offer them prey every or every other day, right away, I've had them for just a couple of days, to see if they eat. Won't this stress them even more? They made quite a long trip, and have been handled and bothered since their arrival (people who pre-ordered have been coming to choose and get their own), so my common sense tells me to let them be on their own for a week at least before offering food? They seem hungry, they've been zooming around the tanks actively, and some of them also seemed to have settled down, found nice hides etc. So I tried to give a small F/T mouse to a male who'd been snipping at me (I figured he should have an appetite, if anyone... he's btw the only one to show aggressive signs). I left him alone with the mouse in a small box with a hide, in a dark wardrobe, but he didn't take it. I reheated it and put another male into the box with the mouse and slept over the night (only three hours, though). Nothing had happened to the mouse. I even broke it's skull a little, to increase the smell. The apartment was pitch black and calm. I figure it's just too soon, or the snake just didn't recognize the limp thing as something edible?

What I'd like to do is wait for a week, possibly separate the babies, then offer them food in their own enclosures at night. What do you think?

When I purchased the babies I didn't know I'd have to go through this, since I assumed that they eat dead prey. It's a bit stressful...

P.S. sorry for the long post... I'm thankful for any help and advice you guys can offer me.