Kind Of Odd

[ride_gnu]

Or at least I thought so.

Went to feed my BP tonight, and I usually feed him medium rats but today the pet stors was out so I got two large mice. I have never had a STRONG attack from him, he usally takes about a 30 seconds to strike, coils, and then eats his food. However tonight he would not TOUCH the mice at all, and I have never had him refuse a meal. Now I noticed the following between the mice and the rats and was wondeirg if you guys thought any of these could be the reason;

1) The mice are much drier then the usualu rats after defrosting

2) The mice seem to have a more constant temperture throughout

3) The mice are alot more pleasant to smell and dont smell liek death as much as the rats do.

I was thinking that maybe it was due to smell? but not sure and just curious.

[lillyorchid]

Ball pythons are known to get imprinted on a certin food item. My BP's would not know a mouse was something to eat, but would hit and kill every rat I put in there. My king snake on the other hand would eat every mouse I put in there and will shy away from a small rat. Most of the time they will not eat both mice and rats but pick one and stay eating that. If your snakes has only been eating rats, keep feeding it rats because you dont have any problems with it eating those. Snakes can go a while with out food so if the pet store is out, wait till they get more in and just get a rat then instead of wating your money on mice that your snake doesn't know are food or wants to eat them.

[python.princess]

Yup, once I started mine on rats, they wouldn't touch another mouse.

[HaleBug]

Crazy, mine switches almost monthly from mice to rats and back again with zero problems. He's never refused a meal though.. kindof an oinker