So I got my first ball on Saturday at Tinley. There were no feeder vendors there so I called up my usual supplier, lied to work to get out early on Wednesday, and met up with Brad for some rat pups. Not to mention, Sunday, being my usual feeding day, offered her a mouse 'corn snake style' (which is code for soaking wet in a feeding tub since my corns would probably eat just about anything I put in for them) which she completely ignored. No big deal as I hadn't expected her to eat but I thought I'd give her the chance. The last 3 days she's been left alone in her tub except for me checking temps/humidity because I'm paranoid, and tonight I couldn't take it any longer. Got home from work, put a rat pup out to thaw, and then not so patiently waited til it was ready to heat up with a hairdryer. Got some odd looks from the hubby while blow drying a dead baby rat on a plate but finally got it up to temp. Right sized meal? Check. Warmed enough? Check. Hemostats? Oops... Almost forgot to use those. Went up to the snake room since it was dark and like usual, Ceti was cruising her tub. Dropped the rat 3 times before figuring out the best way to grip it and then 'danced' it on top of her hide for about 10 seconds before she hit it, actually hurting my fingers a bit when she wrenched the hemostats around to coil. All that worry since she'd always been fed live and I've read the horror stories of balls being so picky they don't eat. Gotta say it was a great feeling to watch her swallow though now she's going to make me think this is easy and the next one I get will cause all sorts of headaches if Murphy's law kicks in. :)
Sorry for the long post, but I'm excited she's eating as I was not looking forward to either a picky snake or trying to find live rat pups in my area.