weaning to rats

My new pastel was eating live mice when she was with her old owner and ive had her for nearly two weeks now btw so i let her settle in. and i want to wean her onto f/t rats. ive offered it to her twice now and im worried shes not gonna take unless i try something. but that something is wat i have no idea of haha. she will strike at it and even hit it but she wont constrict or eat it afterwards. any pointers?

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Originally Posted by xfallingpointx

My new pastel was eating live mice when she was with her old owner and ive had her for nearly two weeks now btw so i let her settle in. and i want to wean her onto f/t rats. ive offered it to her twice now and im worried shes not gonna take unless i try something. but that something is wat i have no idea of haha. she will strike at it and even hit it but she wont constrict or eat it afterwards. any pointers?

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Going from live mice to f/t rats is a bit of a jump for most BPs, in my opinion. You may have to try live rat pups first since she was previously on live. If she takes a few live rat pups, try a prekilled rat (not f/t). My Pin was on live small rats for nearly three years and has been readily accepting prekilled small rats for the past few feedings. Eventually I will try f/t with him.

Make sure the temp of the prey item is close to live prey; around a 100 degrees or so for a live mouse/rat. Another thing you could try is braining one. Kind of gross but sometimes splitting the skull will let a little blood out and that can excite them enough to strike and eat it.

Mostly it comes down to patience and perseverance. You might have to alternate every other feeding with a live and then trying a f/t the next time. You could also ask a pet store for some soiled mouse bedding from their live mice. Rub that on the head of the f/t and it might trick her enough by smelling like the real thing that she'll take it. If she's a young one, you don't want her going on a feeding strike and losing too much weight if she's still little.

Either way, good luck!

The most important part to offering f/t is making sure its at an optimal temp to be seen as a prey item by your bp. The strikes you are getting seem to be defense strikes

yea she bit my girlfriend on sunday so i decided to try to get something in her to make her aggession stop and i gave her a live mouse as the last person told me she ate and she wouldnt take that either she was in there for 10 minutes and all she did was strike at it and bit it on the head and slithered away to the other side of the tub. shes makin me nervous this is my first ball python that wont accept food. any pointers on trying to get her to eat in general? if i can get her to eat something i can work from there.

Thanks

EDIT: she was 440 grams when i got her early this month and lost like 20 grams

Ne one?

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The snake is stressed out. Quit offering it food and figure out why it isn't comfortable. How are you housing it? What's the temps and what are you heating with? What's the humidity? What are you using for hides? If you husbandry is correct a snake will usually eat.

Regards,

B

She is in a 41 qt tub flexwatt on one side at 89 and 80 ambient idk about humidity and I have a hide bought from reptile basic

bump. please respond b :)

That's a big tub for a snake that size, I usually still have them in 15 qt tubs. I'm not saying my way is the only way, but yours doesn't seem to be working for you.
If you can't put her into a smaller tub try adding multiple hides or maybe try crumbling lots of papers into balls make it fell more cozy?
Let your snake be for at least 1 week, no touching nothing then try again.
Hope this helps:confused:

PS- next week try feeding her a live mouse again, get her to become an established feeder for you before trying to convert her over to rats.