ball not eating baby rats

i bought a bunch of baby rats, and 2 adults for breeding the baby rats for my ball, but shes not eating them, its almost like shes afraid of them, but she eats the mice i was buying for her no problems, if i feed her 2-3 mice she will eat them, but wont even come near the baby rats.. can someone help me here.. is there much of a difference in the feed

Switching a BP can take time, depending on the animal's size you will need to use tough love which mean the animal may go without any food for MONTHS, this of course requires the animal to be of a good healthy weight.

When switching did you offer a rat that was equal in size to the mice offered? Same size prey will allow for a smoother transition once successfully switch you can feed larger preys as needed.

How big is your female?

she is 2 yrs old, 4 ft long, she was eating adult mice, then triesd switching to baby rats, which are similar in size, but the baby rats are a slight bigger, but she wont even go near them, then i dropped a mouse in there, it was gone before it hit the bottom of the tank.. dont get it.. i want to get her on rats, cause as she gets bigger i wont need to feed her as many rats as i would mice.. plus mice stink lol and would rather raise rats for her then mice

Given the age assuming she has a good weight on her you will have to use tough love, in other works you offer a rat if she does not eat it you do not offer anything else and repeat week after weeks, it could take months before she make the switch or she might not make it at all the only way to know is to persevere and decide when you want to give up.

If you plan on breeding her than I would suggest to keep feeding what you are feeding and only attempt switching after she was bred and laid her eggs, females that have laid are very easy to switch.

ok ill try that, i plan on breeding her, but not till later in the year, ill just keep her on mice until then and just sell the rats as the breed to the pet shop until she has her first clutch :)

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Originally Posted by Ramses

ok ill try that, i plan on breeding her, but not till later in the year, ill just keep her on mice until then and just sell the rats as the breed to the pet shop until she has her first clutch :)

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How much does she weigh? You will find mouse eaters have difficulty putting on the weight needed to get to and maintain breeding size. At 2 years and 4 ft she is well conditioned to eat mice - you will have a bit of a time getting her switched most likely.

You can do a search but there are a number of methods to try to change.

The tough love mentioned earlier. Offer a rat, if refused, wait a week, repeat.

You can try scenting your rats. I breed our own rats and mice - i've starting saving soiled mouse bedding and letting a rat roll in that for a day before offering.

You can try chain feeding a small mouse and put the prekilled rat in its mouth as the mouse goes down.

Good luck.

I spent almost 6 months trying to switching my last stubborn female over to rats. She is exactly like your snake and isn't the slight bit interested in rats. She even gave up her hide to a live rat pup for over an hour one night.

She's also an extremely shy eater and I have found that the best way to feed her is to just leave her thawed jumbo mice in her hide, and they're gone by morning. Anything else is hit or miss with her... In the end, I'm just happy she eats well and is healthy. The biggest down-side that I can see is having to feed multiple mice when you could feed a single rat each week when they're full grown.

I tried many approaches when trying to switch any of my ball pythons over to frozen thawed (some of them were mentioned above.) Unfortunately, some Ball Pythons are just going to be mousers for life...