Question about rats..

My ball python eats pretty much anything I throw infront of him. But the problem is...It has to be alive. Or he won't even look at it. It wasn't really a problem feeding him live mice, but now that he needs rats, I'd prefer to have them dead...So he doesn't get bitten. I heard that the transition from live to dead was easier when the rat has just been killed. Instead of thawing a frozen one. Any suggestions on how to get my BP to eat killed prey?

Napoleon; I had the same problem and still to this day my girl won't take frozen, but does now take pree-kill. Here's a little trick that works for me. Feed in a seperate tank, buy your mouse/rat a day ahead keep the rodent in the feed bin, this creates a whole lot of stink ( its a good thing ). On feeding day take the rodent out wipe the bin out, the bin still smells like rodent. Put the snake in the feed bin, it should go into hunt mode. Place the rodent in a bag and give it a whack on something hard (no blood or guts). Dangle the food around the snake, she /he should hit it.......Give it a try. Hope this helps a bit and good luck.

Something else I notice that people do that often tunr their snake off from eating....the whole "dangling in front of their face" thing, especially when its a new kind of prey item. That dangling in front of their face often scares them. I've always dangled them in a location some distance away and allow the snake to come up to it, giving them more of a sense of control thank having a rat waving in front of them.

Thanks for the advice! I'll try that...And hopefully it'll work. He's pretty picky sometimes..

Another thing that might help would be tongs or forceps.
You could dangle the pre-killed prey infront of the BP.
It might react to the movement.
Try feeding once the sun goes down.

I've done that with some thawed out prey. The dangling with the tongs. Didn't do anything...He just sat there. I plan on trying that with pre-killed though...

i just drop the rat into her cage and she does the 's' thing and then i take my dart gun (its a long hollow metal pole) and kinda nudge it and then she strikes at the rat.Rat fuzzies and pinkies dont have the long tails mice do and it makes them harder to hold with tongs. I dont hold the rat by the body with tongs becuase i dont want roxy to stike and hit her nose and get scared like she did the first time i fed pre killed.she dint like getting hit in the nose much.

Mine did that. Gentleman Jim Stacey. That's his name..>_> Which is why I just refer to my snake as 'him'. Eh heh. But anyway, yeah..He hit his nose on the tongs the first time he struck at some dead prey. Maybe that's why he hates thawed? e_e;

this is the advice someone gave me
Take the mouse and put it in a ziplock bag, seal the bag and slam the bag 4 times AS HARD AS YOU CAN (not slamming hard will make the mouse suffer). Take the dead mouse out of the bag (it still might be twitching) and give it to your BP. I suggest using hemostats/tongs/forceps and give it a little motion and your BP should take it. kill hoppers the same way as adults, to kill fuzzies give them 5 very very hard flicks on the head and they will die. Just put these in front of the BP, move them closer to the head of the BP for best effect. Don’t tap the BP on the head with the mice though. After they eat FK twice try feeding frozen. Completely thaw out the mice (on a plastic bag that is on a piece of metal), then put them in zip loc bags and put the bag in a jar of VERY Hot (as hot as your sink goes) water. seal the jar and run the very hot water over the jar. after around 15 minutes (if your mice are room temp) they will be hot enough to feed.
hope that can help

Good points.

Dangling a prey item RIGHT IN THEIR FACE is a good way to ensure they won't take it that day - esp i the BP in question is in the slightest headshy. Mouse dance it some distance away from the snakes face - some BP's don't liek it when the dangled/dancing mouse is tail-up and thus appears much taller than they would otherwise expect and then bump-dragging it horizontally across the substrate might do it.

A Single mouse in a shopping bag should go down with a single whack against a sufficiently hard surface - don't be ginger in doing this - too many whacks you'll have a mess - too light and you'll just feel guilty at the twitching. Some of ours have to have the prey's nose held against a heat lamp a few seconds so that there's a real solid heat signature in order for them to take it. While there is a lot of room for individual idiosyncracies for each snake most of the methods mentioned will generally work - just be patient and try a few.

ouch, 4 times as hard as you can?? I know for a 200 pound man 4 times as hard as he can would explode that thing. (when i was feeding mice) i just gave it one nice hard whack and that sucker was DEAD i think four times might be a little too much.

i felt bad becuase this time when i whacked the rat i think i did it too hard becuase some blood came outta its ears. kinda gross

Yeah...My BP is really headshy. He jerks away if anything comes near his head. So I guess I'll dangle it away from his face. Thanks for the pointers on killing the rat. I do NOT want a big mess. Ick..>.<

The advice that was given to me by a few people was to make sure the rat or mouse is not wet, they tend not to like the wet taste.

What about...Suffocation? Like in an air tight container or something?

In my eyes that's a cruel way to put down a mouse. I'm pretty disgusted at the petshop up town where I get my mice(not for much longer..). He throws a live mouse in a baggy, staples it shut, and throws it in a freezer to suffocate/freeze to death. Poor things. I'd get a frozen mouse, and it'd have little mouse droppings froze to it from being so scared and losing control of it's bodily functions...and the eyes wide open...with a look of fear stricken on their faces...poooor things. :cry:

So yeah...I'm all for the quick, pain-free death.

That is pretty cruel...but..I wouldn't want to beat it against the ground..And not kill it in the first shot. I don't know which is less painful for the rat...But today, my cousin just ended up throwing it in a jar and letting it suffocate. Didn't take long for it to pass out. I felt kinda bad...But when my snake ate it, I felt all better. >_>;

Yeah, that's why I'm glad I can just get f/t and not have to worry about killing a rodent myself. I don't think I'd have the heart to kill one myself. I'd be afraid it wouldn't die the first whack too. But I guess you can think of it this way...even if it doesn't die on the first whack, it'll probably be so knocked silly, it wouldn't know what hit it. By then, you could give it a second whack to finish it. It'd never know what hit it....quick and no suffering. I'd think that even if they don't die with the first whack though, it'd atleast be knocked unconcious. Then if it's still breathing, you know it's not done, so you give'er another whack, and it's done. And the rodent will never know what hit'em. It's definitely less painful and cruel than freezing or suffocating.

That's what I thought. And probably what I'll try next time. This was his first rat, pre-killed. I was surprised he took it at all. I feel sorry for the rats, and would probably feel terrible if I didn't kill it on the first try. But I need to try different methods.

Basically you have to break its neck. Take the rat and put in a paper bag and roll it up. (Sort of like a burrito). Next grab the rat by the head while it is still in the bag and give it a nice jerk on the air. That snaps the neck and kills the rat or mouse.

Whoa. Never heard of that method. Maybe I'll try it. I've heard of the spoon method..But I don't really know how to do it...So I haven't tried.

I just whack the rat against a rock, and it dies instantly. I cannot believe that people out there freeze the poor things to death! That in my opinion is torturous. :(
If I were squeamish or reluctant to whack them, I would definately rig up some sort of gas chamber, but never freeze them.

Since we are talking about the best way to do away with a rat befor feeding them to our babies, I was trying to think of a way to do that this weekend. Has anyone thought of or tried using a regular rat trap. I was thinking if you load the trap with food, place it in a cage with the rat, then bam it's history. The thing I don't kow about is will the broken bones of the rat harm your snake when he is eating it? Any thoughts on this or should I go back to the drawing board.

i personally wouldn't use that method. you aren't guaranteed that the trap is going to actually kill the rat. i had to set a trap for a rat in one of my old apts and the rat got out of the trap still alive, and ran all over my apartment freaking out until it finally bled to death. not something i ever want to experience again. i thought the trap would kill it instantly, but obviously that doesn't always work. if i had to kill a rat for my snake i would definitely go with the co2 gas in the cooler method. cheap, quick and humane.

If you're still feeding live right now, carefully observe how it hunts for the rat... that in my opinion is one of the most important factors in making the switch. Some snakes are perfectly content just coming up to a dead rodent on the ground. Some do respond well to having a rodent dangled in its face, as if it it was doing it out of defense. Others prefer to ambush it from their hide, or sneak up from it from behind. However your snake usually does it, try to emulate that as closely as possible with prekilled and then frozen/thawed. Also make certain when using frozen/thawed that the rodent is sufficiently warm, and thorougly so.