oh look...another feeding question

[carmich132]

To keep it simple: my bp hasn't eaten in a while (he's very tempermental) and I'm wandering if the prey size is a possible reason why. He is about 2.5 inches around at his girth and the rats look the appropriate size, but if the rat is too small will he just leave it? I feel like the only problem would be if the rat was too big, but now I'm questioning the opposite end of the spectrum. Thoughts?

[carmich132]

Also: he is in a home-built rack with my other bp...temps are steady at 82/93, 50% humidity, 2 hides, water bowl, and newspaper substrate.

[JLC]

Unless you're trying to feed a full grown, large snake a pinky, I don't think they'd reject the prey on the grounds of it being too small. They MAY reject something they feel is too large, though.

Try mice. My BP was a pretty steady rat eater for the first year that I had her, but would occasionally go on little fasts that would, of course, drive me nuts. When we moved to a new state and I could no longer take an un-eaten rat back to the petstore, the fasts became a much bigger problem. It was suggested by two different, highly knowledgeable people to try her on mice. WOW! She yanks those suckers up immediately and has not missed a meal since. She is currently on three mice per week and thriving quite nicely.

[MelissaFlipski]

Once our 1 yr old BP had been steadily eating adult F/T mice, we had a feeding night when the pet store closed and all we had were two frozen fuzzies. So we thawed them out and he took them one after another, and happily, too!