Ball python not eating rats

Hello
I have a female ball python that I have had for 6 months, but she will be a year old soon.
She is usually a monster eater, but this past month, she has not eaten. She usually eats 2 mice every week without a problem. But I knew it was time to move up to small rats. That's when she stopped eating.She has taken a small rat before, but it was my mistake to continue feeding her mice after that day. Now, she shows no interest in them. I offered her food every week or two and she would not eat. A month went by and I decided to try a small mouse (last week), to see if she actually had an appetite. She took the mouse without a problem. Earlier today, I offered a small rat. Nothing. She eats in a bin normally, but since she did not eat, I threw the rat in her tank with her (with supervision of course) and nothing. I'm not sure what to do, as I never have had this problem with my other ball python. I refuse to force feed, as it can sometimes do more harm than good. I am only okay to force feed if it is a baby ball python that is very thin and will not eat at all. But since mine is older and is usually a good eater, I feel it is unnecessary and think it will just stress her out. I have also tried fresh killed and frozen, but she prefers live, so that is what I stick with. Also, her temp and humidity is normal.If anyone has any suggestions or tips, it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Well if you want her to switch to rats, you may have to wait it out, and she should eventually give in. Also, you could try leaving a rat pup in her enclosure for a few hours or overnight as it won't harm your snake. Another option is you could pre-scent the rat so that it smells like a mouse to her.

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as long as she is a healthy weight and size you can offer only every couple weeks and see if she decides to go for it. If she refuses wait another two weeks, etc. And so and so forth. Do that for a few months. They can go for a very long time without eating in the wild, and in captivity, you won't hurt her by fasting her a bit like that. Just monitor her body shape and size. If she loses a significant amount of weight definitely offer a few mice again. Hope this helps, mike

A trick to try is to get a bag of dirty aspen from the mouse cages at a pet store (for free!) full of poops and mouse smells. You can save that in a box, put the live rat in the box too, and keep it there for a few minutes to give the rat a mouse scent as thoroughly as possible, and try again.

I had to use this method for my albino male whenever he only wants to eat live (and used to only want to eat mice too). He is more consistently eating F/T now, but I still need to roll the F/T rat in the mouse aspen before offering to coat it in the mouse scent, or else he won't take it.