Will some snakes just not eat frozen mice ever?

I can not find any one that breeds mice around my area that have hoppers right now and my snake will not eat frozen. Will he eat them sooner or later if he get hungrey enough? I have some mice that are prego right now but he has not ate in 3 weeks, and he is skinny as it is.

Post a craigslist ad asking for RATs :P
Or mice if you must :)

BP's can be really picky. Some will never change over to F/T, some need alot of work before they accept F/T, and some will take it no problem. Id say work with him to try take F/T, but there is no guarantee he will switch.

They will send them alive?

No shipping, just find someone in your area breeding mice/rats, I have a list I keep of locals and if I run out I make calls...

My ball python is so picky. I gave him a frozen thawed and he didn't eat. And ever time I fed him I gave him frozen thawed and he still did not eat! So I gave up and he only eats live.

The most important thing is that your snake eat SOMETHING. If it's refusing FT, don't let it starve to death--give it live.
Once it's had a few meals, work with it--offer it food and leave the cage open while it strikes its prey. Then offer it pre-killed prey on tongs. Then frozen/thawed prey that has been rubbed into fresh mouse pee (this works like a charm for me). It usually only takes 1 or 2 feedings like the last one for the snake to accept frozen-thawed mice that aren't scented.
Once it's eating FT, you shouldn't ever have to go back.

Not all snakes will convert to FT. I have some that are too shy to eat with the cage/bin open. I have some that will take pre-killed off of tongs, but come up all excited, take a few 'sniff's, and then give me the DIRTIEST look when I offer them scented FT, and turn around and move to the back of the bin. <lol>

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If it's refusing FT, don't let it starve to death--give it live.

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I agree with this. If I would have kept at trying to feed frozen thaw to my baby ball, he probably would have starved to death, but once I found live small enough, he grabbed it right up, and has now finally had 4 good feedings. I still try f/t, and he still refuses it.

You can feed really young hatchling snakes small adult mice. A lot of breeders start their fresh out of the egg babies on small adult mice and skip right over fuzzies/hoppers. That was what I had to do and it has worked out well. Just go to whatever store sells mice and ask for their smallest female(tend to me smaller than males).

Truthfully, if the snake is healthy to begin with going a few weeks or even a few months without food is not going to kill it. I have not had a single one yet that wouldn't switch over to f/t between my boas or bp.
It's the giving in after a few weeks or a month or two and giving them live that makes them stubborn and less likely to switch. And I learned that first hand. After repeatedly giving in and giving one of my problem feeders live after refusing f/t for a couple months because I was so afraid he would starve himself to death it ended up taking me nearly a year to get him eating regularly once he did finally start on f/t. If I would have just held my ground a little bit longer in the first place then I would have had him switched a whole lot sooner.


I don't think I've heard of any snakes starving themselves to death if they are completely healthy, if they are continued to be offered f/t. If they are already sick and refusing, then yes they might. But in my experience they will eventually give in and take it, you just have to be more stubborn than they are.

And to note, I finally got my problem feeder eating and on f/t by soaking his rats directly in hot water. Apparently when they are wet they have an even stronger smell, so he'd snatch them up real quick when I did it that way, dry he just ignored them.

It might just be me, but it seems like a lot more bp owners tend to give in and go live compared to the way they do with boas and most of these types of posts end up getting tons of responses saying to go live instead of sticking it out for any length of time. :confuzd:

Yes, adult snakes you can make them go a little hungry to switch over to f/t. With babies or hatchlings, it's not good for them to go without food for long periods of time.

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Originally Posted by Aleria

Truthfully, if the snake is healthy to begin with going a few weeks or even a few months without food is not going to kill it. I have not had a single one yet that wouldn't switch over to f/t between my boas or bp.
It's the giving in after a few weeks or a month or two and giving them live that makes them stubborn and less likely to switch. And I learned that first hand. After repeatedly giving in and giving one of my problem feeders live after refusing f/t for a couple months because I was so afraid he would starve himself to death it ended up taking me nearly a year to get him eating regularly once he did finally start on f/t. If I would have just held my ground a little bit longer in the first place then I would have had him switched a whole lot sooner.


I don't think I've heard of any snakes starving themselves to death if they are completely healthy, if they are continued to be offered f/t. If they are already sick and refusing, then yes they might. But in my experience they will eventually give in and take it, you just have to be more stubborn than they are.

And to note, I finally got my problem feeder eating and on f/t by soaking his rats directly in hot water. Apparently when they are wet they have an even stronger smell, so he'd snatch them up real quick when I did it that way, dry he just ignored them.

It might just be me, but it seems like a lot more bp owners tend to give in and go live compared to the way they do with boas and most of these types of posts end up getting tons of responses saying to go live instead of sticking it out for any length of time. :confuzd:

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Since she's looking for mouse hoppers, it's probably safe to assume she's talking about a baby, that cannot go for months without eating and they will starve to death. And hatchlings sometimes need to be on live for several meals before they are converted to f/t. There's plenty of time over the next year to convert - for now, feed a baby live.

One of mine was refusing anything but live, and even that sometimes when I got him as a baby and by the time he was 4 or 5 months old is when I finally put my foot down and he went 6 weeks without eating until he finally gave in and took f/t. He didn't even lose any weight during that time and managed through it with no problems. I'd say by the time a healthy snake reaches a few months old it should be able to handle going that long without it causing harm.

But of course making sure they are at a nice plump weight, if feeding on live just fine, prior to attempting to push the f/t only approach for a long period if they keep refusing f/t is always the best idea, so you know they'll have plenty of weight on them to make it through the weeks if they choose to take that long to switch.
Attempting to fight it out with them like that if they are already on the thin side, or not quite "plump" for their age would likely not be a good idea.

One of my biggest successes with getting a snake to make the switch is a 14 year old bp. He had eaten live only for the first 8 years of his life and had refused f/t many times during that period. But using the method I mentioned previously I was even able to get him to switch after 8 whole years of him refusing f/t and only wanting live. He's been on f/t ever since. He was one of the unfortunate ones that ended up having one of those near death mouse attack accidents at the hands of an inexperienced person. But after surviving that it made me push for the switch that much harder.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Since she's looking for mouse hoppers, it's probably safe to assume she's talking about a baby, that cannot go for months without eating and they will starve to death. And hatchlings sometimes need to be on live for several meals before they are converted to f/t. There's plenty of time over the next year to convert - for now, feed a baby live.

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Of course, I was just responding to the main question in the topic itself of whether or not some will always refuse for their entire life. I definitely wouldn't suggest forcing a very young hatchling/baby through that. I mentioned in my post that I was typing at the same time as you were submitting this post that waiting until they are a few months old and have had time to build up a decent store of body weight is best. :)

One thing we don't want to do is say that live or frozen/thawed is a preferred method. Each individual keeper needs to decide the preferred method for themselves.

For my ball pythons, they all feed live (with the exception of the albino). I've had no desire to switch them to f/t, and I've had nothing more serious than an insignificant scratch, less than 10 times in over 5 years. Ten times in over 10K live feedings in that time. Figure 50 snakes fed weekly over 52 weeks.

For others, f/t is the choice for them. Neither way is better than the other, both methods have pro's and con's.

I tried and failed for 2 months normal bp 1 idiot owner 0. I gave up she gives the dirtiest die looks ever when presented with a frozen rodent

Some ball pythons may never take frozen mice/rats.

I even have a king snake that won't take live. He's such weirdo.

i had trouble with my snake switching over to f/t and so did my brother with his ball python. we started making large loops of fishing line and putting the rat on the loop and we call it "rat dancing" :banana: cause after we balance the rat on the large loop, we make the rat dance a little and after they strike we just clip the line and slide it out. for some reason my snake wont strike a rat if it isnt moving at least a little. ive plopped a couple f/t rats in there and she smells them and looks at them for a bit but then she puts a distance between her and the rat and just stares at it. i dont know why but for some reason, my snake just will not touch anything that doesnt move. just a suggestion.

im having the same issue w/ my snake not wanting F/T weaner rats. he would eat f/t mice when he was a juvenile and then he started to become picky and only take live mice.

now he is 3ft long and 1 1/2 years old and eats 2 large mice every other week. i have attempted feeding small f/t rats and have had no success.

i have tried tricking him by feeding him the live mouse and then the small rat but once he smells it he loses interest. i can either dangle it in front of him or drop it in the feeding box and he just turns the other way.

any tips on how to try and convert him over to f/t rats or mice? it is much cheaper!

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Originally Posted by AkHerps

Yes, adult snakes you can make them go a little hungry to switch over to f/t. With babies or hatchlings, it's not good for them to go without food for long periods of time.

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This is an old thread, but I found it doing a search on switching a young BP to F/T.
I have a young BP who had been eating small live mice prior to me getting him. I'd like to switch to F/T, but since he is still fairly young (He is approximately just over a foot long), should I continue with live until he gets a big larger before going at the F/T battle?

How to win the fight:

First, I don't think making them go hungry actually helps much, if at all. Repeated exposure seems to--many won't take it on the first try, but will take it a few tries down the road...regardless of whether they've eaten other things.

1) Heat the rodent up extremely well. Use hot tap water--be sure it's not so hot it will burn, but it should be warmer than a normal live rat.

2) Wiggle it. A short back and forth motion seems to get their attention best.

3) Worst comes to worst, rub it liberally in the pee spot from a live rat--get it good and stinky with rat pee. Apparently, frozen rats don't smell like live ones, and stinking it up with rat pee disguises this. Same trick works with mice, and also to switch from mice to rats.

If the meal is rejected, give up, offer a live rodent, and try again next week.

I had one adult female take THREE YEARS to switch. I offered her FT every time I offered it to my other snakes, and she gave me dirty looks, and would only eat live. Then, one day, bam...she's taken them ever since.