I've had my BP "Pontius" since february 06', at that time he was a little baby. For about the first month I attempted to feed him f/t or pre-killed mice but to no avail would he take a frozen or pre-killed mouse so I made the decision to feed live. Previously I had a full grown red tail boa that when I recieved him the previous owner said that he fed him live because he wouldn't take anything else. To make a long story short the red tail had multiple scars from live prey. I didn't want this to happen to my new BP but he needed to eat, so I went ahead and fed him live. It's been 10 months now and I'm continuing to feed live with no problems but he's growing and I'm feeding larger and there's now a higher potential of a rat that's going to wound the snake. For instance last week when I fed him, Pontius was being fussy. So I placed the rat closer to Pontius and he struck but missed. After 15 min. or so, he finally got the rat and the rat began to kick. This hasn't been a problem in the past because he usually gets the rat in a position to where the rat can't possibly wound him but in this case the rat was scraping his neck and I knew it would only get worse. At this point I reached in there and grabbed the rats hind legs with my tongs holding them out of reach of Pontius' body. Everything ended up being fine but it most likely was a horrific experience for my snake and I would prefer it to not happen again. The question is: How do I switch my snake from live to pre-killed? What are some methods other's use? Can someone help me with this process?