Anecdotal Story About Warm Rats

I normally feed my BP F/T, but sometimes if I'm at the pet store I'll pick up a fresh killed. Less work, no hot water bath, etc. I can just drop it in, do the wiggle dance and watch nature take its course.

But this past time, I must have been slow to drop in the rat. It was pretty much room temp by the time it found its way in the cage. The BP was curious. She sat in her stalker 'S' shape waiting for the rat, even though it was right in front of her. I wiggled that poor dead rat for what seemed like an eternity and the BP knew something was up, but could not seemingly realize that furry thing was food.

So I tried warming it up a tad. I dropped it in, and sure enough the snake was much more curious about this warm furry thing. But still no strike-coil-eat. Another 10 minutes of wiggle dance.

Finally, I dropped the rat in a hot water bath, really warmed it up, and upon trying to drop it in the cage the BP struck with great ferocity. It's like the lights were turned on. She hit it and hit it hard and it was gone in no time at all.

It makes sense, they do have heat pits. It was like when you're in a dark room walking around. You know stuff is around, but not sure where and you're trying not to stub your toe and then somebody turns on the light and you can see exactly whats going on.

It was learning experience for me, and I thought it might help anybody else with feeding issues. Mouse or rat temperature does matter!

Indeed it does, I use a temp gun to make sure that mine are 98-100 degrees before I offer them.

I used to feed f/t but found in a pain to get rat to temp or keep it there. Most of my snakes ate f/t no problem except one. We had to keep reheating. Kinda pain in the backside. Switched over to live and f/k and had absolutely zero problems feeding. Plus to be honest its way more convenient .

I also learned the 100f magic temp wben I got into boas. I noticed that two would strike and constrict but leave the rat alone if it wasn't hot enough. That's when I did a little research on rats and found out that their natural body femp was 99-100F. Once I started paying attention to the temps of my feeders, I got better feeding responses.

It's really true! Because their method of "seeing" prey is so bizarre, I think it becomes really easy for us to forget!

I feed only f/t and after they are fully thawed, I warm them with my blow dryer! :D I REALLY lucked out with my BP in that her feeding response is absolutely astounding, she NEVER turns down food and she hits them INSTANTLY, I am not even kidding 5 seconds max. But I have TOTALY noticed that when I get lazy with the blow dryer and don't heat the rodents up enough, she still hits them, but once she has decided it is dead, she has a really hard time finding the head and noses around them and bites random parts of their body before finally getting it. I think if they are not heated enough, they cool off too fast and then the poor snake is just confused. :weirdface

I read this and was reminded of a few nights ago, finding an adorable little crawler rat fast asleep on top of the heat tape in the hide. It was upside down and twitching, and at first I thought the ball python had injured it, but it was just dreaming. :rolleyes: