He ate his first rat!!!

my BP Zeus ate his first rat today, it was a small rat, about The same size as 2 large mice, but he ate it just fine!!! there was no hesitation, but i dangled it about a foot away from him just to see if he was interested (he is in shed). AND HE NAILED IT!!!!! i was going to kill it first, but i didn't get a chance to... took 5 minits to kill it though... (no chance of a bite from rat) BUT he did it!!! :P im soooo proud!!!! now ill spend $4 a week for his rats :mad:. but still he eats rats!!! also, he will not take pre killed, he ONLY eats live or fresh killed. i do 99% of the time feed fresh killed. this is the first in months one of my snakes has killed something! tell me how you guys felt after your snake ate it's first mouse, (even though it is only a feed) I still think it is cool!

Congratulations on getting him to successfully take a rat. Hopefully he will stick with them... :gj:

Sounds awsome and I can relate! My first ball python started off eating f/t, but then started refusing. So starting with mice I would have to buy live and do a lil...smacking on them before offering them up. I honestly really hated that, but I wouldn't starve him of course. For a while he continued to eat like that, but I was determined to switch him over to rats. I would never do a live rat feeding and I couldn't bare hitting them or something to stun them so I went back to f/t. After many failed attempts he FINALLY accepted them and I was sooooo happy! Now he eats them just fine and seems to like the rats and lot more anyway.

It was getting crazy having to give him four mice each feed. Good luck with your ball python and do plz be careful with the live feedings. I just hate hearing about rats mauling the poor snakes! Even when I fed a mouse once that was STUNNED seconds before it grabbed hold of part of my snake during the constricting. i was so worried and felt awful. Luckily no harm done and he is fine! :D

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Originally Posted by Vypyrz

Congratulations on getting him to successfully take a rat. Hopefully he will stick with them... :gj:

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i like that this is my first feed attempt!!! he was kind of stuned when it didn't die in a minitue, but he swallowed with in 3 minits! and last week before this he actually popped the poor mouse. he was squeezing so hard the guts where forced out its mouth and head! :weirdface :P i hated cleaning that one up... :mad::(:oops:

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Originally Posted by Coils

Sounds awsome and I can relate! My first ball python started off eating f/t, but then started refusing. So starting with mice I would have to buy live and do a lil...smacking on them before offering them up. I honestly really hated that, but I wouldn't starve him of course. For a while he continued to eat like that, but I was determined to switch him over to rats. I would never do a live rat feeding and I couldn't bare hitting them or something to stun them so I went back to f/t. After many failed attempts he FINALLY accepted them and I was sooooo happy! Now he eats them just fine and seems to like the rats and lot more anyway.

It was getting crazy having to give him four mice each feed. Good luck with your ball python and do plz be careful with the live feedings. I just hate hearing about rats mauling the poor snakes! Even when I fed a mouse once that was STUNNED seconds before it grabbed hold of part of my snake during the constricting. i was so worried and felt awful. Luckily no harm done and he is fine! :D

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i didnt mean for him to strike, i just wanted to see if he was hungary, :D and i dont think there is any way a rat could live after i use my killing style, it seems the best way to kill mice and rats are by hitting them hard 3 times with a heavey metal spoon. (they die on the first blow) i use the other 2 incase they are alive, but i try to make it as easy as possible for the mice.