Frozen feeders...

For your future sanity, see if you can get him to eat rats. He's big enough to take rat fuzzies at a minimum. If you really want to stick to mice, he can take hopper mice easy and probably even adult or weaned mice.

your best bet is to get a scale and try to purchase prey for him that's about 10% of his body weight. So if he's say 150g, you want to feed him a prey items that's between 15-22g (adult mouse or a rat fuzzy).

The mouse in that picture you posted is a fuzzy, and too small for a ball.
As stated, if you are going to stick with mice then you want at least hoppers but smalls would be better.

I got him to eat! I went to the pet store today and broke down and bought live hoppers. I would have bought rat pups ( I think they're the same size?) but he had just sold the last of them. So hoppers it is then! They're multicolored and freakin' adorable. I bought 6 of them and brought them home and tried to decide which way to kill the mouse ( I do not want to feed live). Well after looking it up online, I came to the decision to put the mouse in a bag and hit it off the wall. I felt so bad doing it but I have a snake that needs to be fed! Anywho, I killed the mouse and its nerves were still making it move. I am 100% sure that the mouse was dead. I held it over him for like 30 seconds and BAM! My little guy snatched it from me and constricted it. It was kinda funny actually...He grabbed the mouse by the leg and after constricting it, let it go, looked at me, then nudged it a little and then ate it from the head down! It was amazing to watch. I just want to say thank you to everyone who helped me with this. THANK YOU GUYS!!! :) :) :) Here are some pictures!

[IMG]http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps32f5f844.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psf5d84856.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...ps41314287.jpg[/IMG]

I have only prekilled rats my self once. I went with this method:

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...and-Humane-too




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good job getting it to eat but it still looks like the prey item is too small for it

Smacking them against a wall is actually a very inhumane way to kill a rodent. If you don't want to feed live, you can prekill them in a homemade CO2 chamber. It's pretty easy, I think there are tutorials online, using either CO2 canisters or dry ice and water. I think it looks too small as well, but anything's better than nothing and the prey size can always be upped.

The one thing you'll find is that buying online can get a tad expensive when it comes to shipping because they ship the frozen feeders with dry ice. The best thing you can do is find an online seller that allows smaller batches to be sold and fill the box. For instance, I order from Loxahatchee rodents. I can order in packs of 25. So I order one package of the current size they're feeding on AND order the next size up. You can keep frozen rodents in your freezer for 9-12 months. Right now, I am set for the next 6-8 months. I highly recommend Loxahatchee Rodents as they have always come to me frozen, well packaged, sized correctly, clean, my balls gobble them right up (I feed rats but they also do mice), and they by far have been the most reasonable with their shipping prices. While a bit spendy up front, the per-rodent is about the same as in the pet store and you don't have to drive anywhere.

Check them out: http://www.loxahatcheerodents.com/estore/

PLUS they have many, many, many, happy customer testimonials.

I know it was inhumane to kill the mouse that way. That's why I said I felt bad. I will try the dry ice next time. I really didn't know what else to do. :confusd: I will up his feeding size when he finishes off the hoppers. The hoppers are the same size as the thickest part of his body so I think he'll be ok until I get bigger food for him. The pet store I went to is changing from live feeders to frozen in a week or 2 ( YAY!). Again, thank you guys for the help and advice!