Re: Switching back to f/t
You can try to switch her back over to f/t mice/rats, but I say as long as she is eating that is all that matters. Also feeding live is not dangerous, UNLESS you leave that prey item in with her unsupervised.
Also I know A LOT of people who feed their BP's small rats the whole time.... even to their big fat girls. My BP will only eat small small just weaned live rats.... he won't have anything else to do with any rat bigger or prekilled. That's just him and well he is healthy so that is all that matters to me.
Re: Switching back to f/t
I'd say if shes just started eating again, keep with it for awhile. Then you can try pre-killed then over to f/t. Are there any other petstores around, if you have to drive 10 more minutes to get appropriatly sized rats, then maybe that is something you need to do.
Also about the soaking of the tank, you can always try to feed outside of the tank. My BP does it, and generally he ends up putting a hole in the side of the mouse, and during constricting blood/guts gets everywhere, which would be horrible to clean out his tank (I also take the time that he is in the feeding tub to clean out his regular enclosure).
Re: Switching back to f/t
This is the first time she's ever made a mess during feeding so I'm not too worried about having to do a quick cleanup once in a while.
Each time I feed her live, the mouse doesn't even have time to squeak so they wouldn't have time to fight back right?
I was concerned that the longer she's on live, the tougher it will be to switch back....