How I convert feeder types

I see this question asked a lot, and I get PMs asking as well. So, I figure I would outline how I convert from mice to rats, or live to f/t.

For converting a live mouser to f/t rats (full spectrum scenario):

FIRST: offer a rat pup (or whatever your goal is), she may just take it.

IF NOT:


Relax and BREATHE, this may take longer than you think. Patience is key.

Live mice 3 feedings in a row (if they refuse, other than for a shed, start over)

3 unscented live rat pups in a row (scent the first ones if needed with mouse shavings, but do not count them in the 3)

3 fresh killed rat pups in a row (or skip to f/t, may or may not be needed)

frozen thawed rats (make sure they are VERY warm, I use a hair dryer after fully thawing them)

If at any point they refuse I go back a step and start over (ex: refuses the second fresh killed rat, I will go back to live rats for 3 feedings, etc...)


Once they have taken a few f/t in a row, I will generally not switch back to live or mice unless they go over a month without eating.

I generally go on the smaller side for prey when switching to prevent freaking them out from prey size.

If you have a die hard mouser, you can still use the steps to get to f/t mice.

I have never had to resort to braining, or anything like that. Also, this guide is for snakes that have been feeding, not for newborns that need to be started. That is another topic.





Anyone else feel free to post up any tricks you have!

I have used braining and found it to help alot. I take a knife and cut a small slit in the top of the rats skull and squeeze out some blood and brain juice. For some reason my normal girl who wasnt interested in f/t seemed very interested after that. Shes at the point now where i can just place the f/t in the tub and she comes over and eats it.

I think im going to try your method for my pastel girl jinx.:gj:

I had a super stubborn mouser that would totally ignore rats but the second a mouse hit the tub floor she was out like a mamba ready to go. I took a plastic bowl with a lid and poked a ton of holes in it. Then I put the mouse in the bowl and put the bowl and a live rat pup in the enclosure at the same time. It took ms stubborn about 5 seconds to come flying out and nail the rat pup. I've used this method for all my mousers and have about a 75% success rate.

Do you use pups regardless of the size of the snake? If I have a 1000g adult bp would you still offer pups in order to get it converted?

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Originally Posted by KatStoverReptiles

Do you use pups regardless of the size of the snake? If I have a 1000g adult bp would you still offer pups in order to get it converted?

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For 1000g I may use weaned. I have found you want to eliminate the variable of too large a prey size. I have a 1000g girl who will take weaned but balks at anything bigger.

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Originally Posted by jinx667

Once they have taken a few f/t in a row, I will generally not switch back to live or mice unless they go over a month without eatting!

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Why would you switch back if they go just over a month without eatting? That is still a short period of time for a snake to be off food. It's really jumping the gun on switching back unless they are unhealthy.

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Originally Posted by van_garret2000

Why would you switch back if they go just over a month without eatting? That is still a short period of time for a snake to be off food. It's really jumping the gun on switching back unless they are unhealthy.

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WHen trying to keep females putting on size at a decent rate, I have no problem going back a step to keep them going. I they refuse live, then it is a real hunger strike and you wait it out.

So IMO not jumping any gun.

That's understandable sometimes people want their snakes to eat more then snakes even want to for breeding purposes and such. A lot of the people on this site also have their snakes as pets and do t have to keep them eatting as much as breeders would so mentioning they should do that after a month I think is still jumping the gun IMO but everything else in your post I thought was great. Good work.

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Originally Posted by van_garret2000

That's understandable sometimes people want their snakes to eat more then snakes even want to for breeding purposes and such. A lot of the people on this site also have their snakes as pets and do t have to keep them eatting as much as breeders would so mentioning they should do that after a month I think is still jumping the gun IMO but everything else in your post I thought was great. Good work.

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If that is some kind of slight towards how I feed my animals, then you can come out and say it. I do not think that offering another food type after a month is any kind of problem. It is by no means force feeding or power feeding. It is making a food source available for the snake to take or not. Pet or not has nothing to do with it. So this idea of the snake eating "more than the snake even want to" is a non-argument. The snake takes the food of its own accord. As I said, if it then refuses, we wait it out just like any other fast. I do not appreciate any insinuation that I am power feeding my animals to get them to size.

So then my question would be what could be considered power feeding? I feed on a 6 day basis so in a typical 30 day month they would each get 1 extra meal in. So I have heard of people offering 2 rats at each feeding and doing this 1 a week. Or people who feed 2 seperate times a week are these examples of power feeding? What would be a safe way to maximize weight gains in females without "power-feeding"?

Anyway I just got my 1200g male pastel to break his 4 month long feeding strike with a mouse and I want to convert him immediately to rats so thank you for this thread very helpful! :gj:

I feed a appropriate sized rodent to the ones that are <700g or so every 4-5 days and every 7-8 days for the bigger ones.

My understanding is that power feeding would be putting a second rodent in the snake's mouth as it finishes the first, feeding oversized rodents or letting it eat in too close of intervals.

Power feeding is when your snake is finishing one rodent then you sitck another its its mouth so it just keeps eating and ends up eating 2 meals (rodents). Over feeding is when you feed something crazy like 2 rats 3 times a week or something like that, simply bc your snake will eat all of it and you wanna get them up to weight faster. I would NOT reccomend either of these methods except for extreme rare cases where it could be seen as understandable.
(these definitions are how i understood it, though i could be wrong.)

What jinx does by restarting over after a month of refusals is not even close to powerfeeding. Even if he restarted his process 1 week after a refusal i would still not consider it powerfeeding. Doing whatever it takes to get your snake to eat once a week isnt a bad thing at all imo, especially since theres sooo many things that a bp can use as an excuse to refuse a meal lol. If my snakes only ate while Rihanna was playing in the background, you can bet your a$$ i would be jamming out to her every feeding day. :gj:

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

What jinx does by restarting over after a month of refusals is not even close to powerfeeding. Even if he restarted his process 1 week after a refusal i would still not consider it powerfeeding. Doing whatever it takes to get your snake to eat once a week isnt a bad thing at all imo, especially since theres sooo many things that a bp can use as an excuse to refuse a meal lol. If my snakes only ate while Rihanna was playing in the background, you can bet your a$$ i would be jamming out to her every feeding day. :gj:

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This is my point. Thanks!

Either way, this has gotten a bit off topic. The issue here was to address switching prey items.

Thanks for this informative post. My male normal used to take f/t rats. Now I have all the information I need to make this a possibility once again. Very good post Jinx! :gj:

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Originally Posted by jinx667

If that is some kind of slight towards how I feed my animals, then you can come out and say it. I do not think that offering another food type after a month is any kind of problem. It is by no means force feeding or power feeding. It is making a food source available for the snake to take or not. Pet or not has nothing to do with it. So this idea of the snake eating "more than the snake even want to" is a non-argument. The snake takes the food of its own accord. As I said, if it then refuses, we wait it out just like any other fast. I do not appreciate any insinuation that I am power feeding my animals to get them to size.

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Where in the post did I say you were powerfeeding? You don't need to get so upset. I said the rest of your post was great but becuase I disagree with one part you have to get all defensive and try to make it seem like I am attacking you? I am sorry if I upset you that much but I won't agree with you just becaus you are trying to make it seem like I am wanting to insult you when that was not my intentions. All I did was make a statement. Sometimes people do try I get their snakes to keep eatting even when the snakes don't want to, for breeding purposes and such. It's understandable when you want them to gain weight to breed. Where in there did I say that you are now trying to powerfeed your snake? Where in there did I even say that is what you are doing? Would you prefer me to a period in between understandable and sometimes so you will get that it is just a broad statement and not a slight in you? I can edit it if you want me too. Sorry for getting you so worked up. It was not my intentions.

I am not worked up at all, just clarifying my stance. But when you posted twice to make the point about feeding the animal when it does not want to eat or jumping the gun, that merits a response. Power feeding is the term generally used to denote inappropriate feeding, so that is the term I have used. I also wanted to make a broader point concerning feeding practices, but that really should be its own thread.

Anyway, we can agree to disagree on the point of what is jumping the gun. :gj:

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Originally Posted by jinx667

I am not worked up at all, just clarifying my stance. But when you posted twice to make the point about feeding the animal when it does not want to eat or jumping the gun, that merits a response. Power feeding is the term generally used to denote inappropriate feeding, so that is the term I have used. I also wanted to make a broader point concerning feeding practices, but that really should be its own thread.

Anyway, we can agree to disagree on the point of what is jumping the gun. :gj:

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I made the statement and that merited a response. Which you did and that gave me the merit to agree or disagree which I did and I stated it again showing I disagree. Then you responded again. I didn't just state it twice before you responded like you just said.

I don't understand why you think a response of saying I was insinuating you power feed is merited when I didn't do that?

I find the term power feeding is used to denote excessive feeding not just any inappropriate feeding. So I am sorry or misreading you.

I like to agree to disagree too. And again I think everything else you put was great in your initial post.

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Originally Posted by van_garret2000

I made the statement and that merited a response. Which you did and that gave me the merit to agree or disagree which I did and I stated it again showing I disagree. Then you responded again. I didn't just state it twice before you responded like you just said.

I don't understand why you think a response of saying I was insinuating you power feed is merited when I didn't do that?

I find the term power feeding is used to denote excessive feeding not just any inappropriate feeding. So I am sorry or misreading you.

I like to agree to disagree too. And again I think everything else you put was great in your initial post.

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I agree this is starting to make my cranium hurt!

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Originally Posted by Slim

I agree this is starting to make my cranium hurt!

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Agreed:P:D

This is good to read. In my case, I have a male that was a die hard FT guy, then during last breeding season, he refused and went to live. Even on live he is finicky eater, at best once every 2-3 months. In his case, I start him with a live mouse to "get him in the mood". Once he gets near the back of the mouse's body, i gently take a medium FT rat, and have it follow the nearly consumed mouse. It works very well.

Conversely, have a female who use to eat ONLY live, and now she eat the FT no problem, but it took some time to convert her.

I suspect the male will come around, if i ever let him get VERY hungry.

Anyway, now I can gamble on 2 new ones who are so far only live eaters

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Originally Posted by AdamF

In his case, I start him with a live mouse to "get him in the mood". Once he gets near the back of the mouse's body, i gently take a medium FT rat, and have it follow the nearly consumed mouse. It works very well.

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Technically this would be considered power feeding because he doesn't have a choice but to eat the rat. If he's holding his weight well, why force him? Why not offer live mice regularly? If he's a mouser, then feed him mice multiple times a week or more than one in a sitting so he's not being forced to eat the rat?

If he's losing a lot of weight and getting too skinny and refusing everything, then assisted feeding might have to happen but there are better things to do than force a snake to eat a medium size rat after already downing a mouse. If he's fasting on his own, let him do it. If he's not eating and losing a lot of weight then offer him whatever he'll take. Maybe he's not eating more often because you're forcing him and he's stressed. /shrugs

Both of my normal females were from a petstore, and ive barely been able to get them to eat period@_@. My first ia year and a half old and still only 300 grams. My second is about half her age and half her size. It drives me nuts. They'll eat F/T mice, but my first will ONLY eat if ahe is on an open and carpeted area. Shes terrible at being a snake. The second only eats in her enclosure, and while i offer food every week im lucky if they take 1 in 3 feedings. Im actualy about to try a live rat fuzzy on the second tomorrow. See if i cant yet the ball rolling

My burm and my spider male are such awesome eaters. I swear pet store snakes think theyrr allergic to food.