Is it really impossible for some ball pythons to switch to F/T from live?

I don't think it's true. A lot of people give up after just a few tries, or don't attempt for long enough.


My bp was very tough to switch. He took live the first 5-6 years before I started to trying switching him to f/t. I wasn't very persistent most of the time, however, and would quickly give in and give him live again if he refused more than 2-4 meals in a row.


It wasn't until I got a particularly defensive rat that I put my foot down and refused to offer him anything but f/t. He was in the middle of a feeding strike, and wanted nothing to do with the live rat I gave him. When he struck defensively, the rat immediately turned defensive. It raised its hackles and hunched its back, circling around my snake. He'd jump towards my snake's neck, attempting to bite. After I knocked it aside a couple times, I finally took it out and culled it and offered it to my boa constrictor instead. I was afraid that a rat that aggressive would be too much for my boa to handle - plus, he'd only ever had f/t or fresh-killed.


In total, it took me about 1.5 years to make the switch, and just a couple of months after I stopped offering live for him to finally take f/t. At first, I had to super-heat the rats with boiling water. I couldn't get it warm enough with just hot tap water, a hair blower, or by leaving it under a heat lamp. I'd have to bring some water to boil on the stove, remove it from the heat, and set just the head in for a couple of seconds. After a few feedings, I no longer needed to warm the feeders, and he's been taking f/t reliably since. He'll be 13 years this year.


I would also have to leave the rat's head at the entrance to the hide he was in while the head was still hot, as he wouldn't accept it any other way. Eventually, he started taking rats from the tongs just like any of my other snakes.


Nowadays, if my bp were to refuse food for any reason, I'd just stop offering food altogether until he starts to track my movements and/or striking at the smell of my other snakes getting food (or even when there's no food present). Just not offering food at all has been waaaaay more efficient at getting him to end a fast or switch between prey items than any other method I've tried. I'm willing to deal with a small amount of weight loss if it means getting him to eat what he needs to, though to be fair, he's never been so stubborn he'd lose enough weight to be hazardous. (He has had weight loss in the past, but most of his weight loss was during the 3-4 year period he had feeding issues, and I was still learning how to deal with him. This was independent of his switch to f/t, as it started long before I started the switch, and ended long after he made the switch completely to f/t.)