Need Advice on switching from Mice to Rats.

So, my BP is about 160 grams and I figure better to switch to Rats sooner than later. Especially, since she has been eating real well lately. However, it's not happening. I have tried warming the rat a bit with a light or hair dryer, scenting the rat with a mouse by thawing together and rubbing together, and leaving the rat over night (btw... these are all frozen/thawed, appropriately sized rodents and each of these attempts has been 5 days apart). No luck. My BP seems interested... stares at the rat but never strikes. It has been about 3 weeks since her last mouse and I don't want to give in by going back to mice.
Any other ideas or helpful advice on how to make the switch??? Thanks!

About 160 grams ??

Have you scaled her

Have you scaled the Rat ??

Yes. 160 g on the gram scale. The rat pups have all been aprox 20 grams.

try a hopper, live just for the taste. My guys went to rats and have never looked back actually my normal turned down a mouse lol

I am sure an expert will chime in about the time span of feeding but I say don't give in and scale her now to check weight

Only went down 3 grams in the past 3 weeks. I'm not sure about trying the live just cause she has never had live... Might work though?

Hi, I'm a newbie to this hobby but just a few days ago I got my baby girl to eat her first rat pup. She is 165g and the rat was 22g. What I did was make her wait 2wks for a feeding then I placed the rat pup inside a bag with a medium sized mouse (both frozen). I heated a cup of water in the microwave for 3 minutes which brought it to boiling. I placed the bag in the water and let them sit there until the water was almost cool. Then I rolled them around in the bag making sure that there was plenty of mouse smell on the rat pup. I offered the rat first and she hit it like a champ. Mind you I've been trying for a long time to switch her over and I was beginning to think she would never eat rats. This worked for me. Good luck

Thanks enchantress. That's almost exactly what I tried last night but didn't work for me... Guess I've got a picky girl. Maybe I just need to let her get a bit hungrier and try again in a week.

Keep trying the mouse scent trick. It won't hurt her to go a few weeks with out eating if she continues to refuse.

You could also try braining the rat pup.

I think making them wait and get really hungry makes all the difference.

go live ... trust me, works all the time. Good luck. :)

Try braining the rat. Thaw it out. Poke a hole in its skull and squeeze some blood/brain juices out and then hit it with a blowdryer til the head is like 99 degrees. Something about that smell makes them go kookoobongos for them!

Braining sounds pretty nasty... I may try that. Either that or maybe the live.

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Originally Posted by fatSNAKEs

go live ... trust me, works all the time. Good luck. :)

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I would have to agree with this. When I first brought Baloo home she didn't eat for about 3 wks. Mind you she was only a month old at that time but I tried everything to get her to eat f/t mice, rats, hotdogs....no just kidding. Anyway she finally ate when I placed a live fuzzy mouse in the cage. I fed her live for a couple of wks then switched to f/t mice. Sometimes I think they just don't know what to do when they are young but live feeders trigger their natural instinct.