BP Finally eating! Live mice, but HOW to get to F/T and then to rats?

I have my little girl, Alice who is a yellowbelly BP about 1.5 years old or so. She was adopted after being dumped in a nearby park, and came to me at 554g with her backbone sticking out, she's thin. I've dealt with underweight BP's before, but not a juvenile with no known history.

So fast forward to a feeding history that ended up looking like this:
first day: live mouse eaten ravenously
next feed : F/T small mouse, eaten
skip a feed, DNE (did not eat) F/T small rat
offer F/T mouse, DNE
offer F/T mouse again, DNE
skip 2 feeds after offering different size mice and rats, F/T, all DNE
try live rat, eaten
live rat, DNE
F/T small rat, DNE
skip 3 feeds, all DNE, offered 4 live mice out of desperation to get SOME kind of food in her belly and meat on her bones, every single one of them eaten. (this was last night, most recent feed)

as you can see this girl is allllll over the place. I'm not sure what her history is, but it's boggling to try to figure out what she wants.
since she took 4 live mice (it was more of an experiment, really and I was surprised when she took all 4 with no hesitation) I will be doing the same in 1.5 weeks. hopefully she will eat them.

my main concern is getting some weight on her bones. She's thin which could be part of her feeding problem, but I noticed she acts disgusted when she smells the rats, and has more interest in mice. Frozen mice is still hard to convince her to strike at. I just want her weight up and at this point i dont care how picky she is, whatever she will eat is what she will get until her weight is at a normal platform!

so now we know her basic history and apparent feeding habits, my biggest question is, how do I slowly and inconspicuously get her over to F/T rats? she's around 2 inches at her wides point, I know she should be eating rats and would get more nutritional content from one but as it stands shes a bit.... picky. hah.

my current idea is to take a F/T rat when im feeding my other girls and rub it allllll over the live mice for her, so she starts associating the musk of a rat with food. then if that works, do this with a F/T mouse and make it do the thriller dance to see if she falls for it, and feed her a live mouse first, followed up in the same feeding by the F/T one so hopefully she wont notice the difference. then if THAT works, try a small frozen rat with mouse scent rubbed allll over it, and go from there. this is going to be a very long and frustrating process, i can already tell. lol

sorry for my horrid spelling and grammar, believe my background in english is shaking its head at me but its morning and I haven't had my coffee yet. forgive me.

any thoughts, concerns, questions, songs, interpretive dances? How should I get this extremely picky eater to become a habitual pig who gobbles down whatever I give her? (like all my other girls are lol)

The only thing I can suggest (and I haven't had my morning cup yet either) is to take a small frozen rat maybe 40/50 grams and put it in a bag with frozen mice. Put 2 or 3 frozen mice in the bag with them all touching and laying together. Keep that bag at least 3 days in the freezer. This is done to get the smell all entwined over each other. Then when time to feed take out the frozen rat, thaw, heat and try to make the rat seem alive. Grab it by the mid-back and make it wiggle or tremble, walk it past the hide door, in other words try to fool the snake in every way, smell and in action.
But it might be you have to stick with live mice. I had a snake like that. It hated rat. Some say tough love works and that hunger eventually wins. Maybe so. Some say just feed them what they want. The decision is up to you I guess. Glad I only have one and it eats f/t rats no problem or hesitation. I used the above method to get mine from mice to rat.

There is NO nutritional difference from feeding rats (despite some misinformed claims to the contrary) & your BP CAN be fed mice...the only reason many want to
switch to rats is that many BPs will only eat ONE item per meal, so when the snake is larger, one adult mouse is just not enough food. Yours is eating multiple mice
now, and is underweight, so personally, switching her to rats right now is the LAST thing I'd recommend doing.

What I WOULD do (for her safety*) is switch her from live mice to freshly-killed ones (yes, killed by you before offering). Next feeding, since you know she'll take
multiples, give her a small adult mouse first (a "hopper" is also less risk for an "appetizer"), then after she eats that, offer a fresh-killed adult mouse (use tongs, wiggle
it slightly but not aggressively towards her) & she'll likely wolf it down, from what you've said. *Why? Because the very LAST thing a poor-feeding & underweight snake needs is to get bit (injured) by prey...healing is hard enough for a healthy snake!

The first chance you get, take a stool sample to the vet, because I have a strong hunch that her failure to put on enough weight comes from sharing her meals with
intestinal worms! :O Yeah, gross and they're stealing her food & her health. Get that done. :snake: It takes medication, very effective & fast fix.

Switching to rats at the moment is not important...& there are ways to get her on f/t mice, but do this ^ ^ ^ first. ;)

(in charting rejected meals, I use "ref" -short for "refused"...might be easier to follow by others)

Oops, I almost forgot to include my "interpretive dance"- :taz:

BTW, rats & mice smell & presumably taste way different, & many snakes (not only BPs) have a strong preference. BPs just tend to be more picky eaters than other
kinds of snakes, so trying to give them "variety" seldom goes over well. I've had plenty of snakes over the years that seem to enjoy changes as long as they were the
right size, but not BPs. They do tend to like hamsters, gerbils & ASFs too (the last of which I've never fed), but unless you're breeding them yourself, the pet store
prices will be a big turn-off for you, even if the "cuteness factor" isn't. The main thing (first) is to get her weight up...get her healthy...so trying to change to rats is
just an unnecessary health risk right now.

Loose in a park = send stool sample out for parasite test.

Weight on the bones? Can you get any ASFs?

right now I cant, and I'll get her next stool sample and see if I can squeeze her into the vets office for a checkup, shes acting perfectly fine so far, just thin.
presumably from not finding much food for however long she was loose. parasites do worry me, and all my girls are going to get yearly checkups by december.

can stool samples be frozen to store them? or how should I store them If I cant get to a vet right away after she poops?

she seemed to jump on the opportunity to scarf down and grab those mice, and that's the first time i'd offere a live mouse to her. the other times o offered live was rats, and that was hit or miss with her.

to everyone else, I agree, I'm sticking with what she will eat until I can get her to a good weight and dont see her backbone sticking up anymore. then I'll work on getting her to rats, thats second on the list.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Droxalope_94

right now I cant, and I'll get her next stool sample and see if I can squeeze her into the vets office for a checkup, shes acting perfectly fine so far, just thin.
presumably from not finding much food for however long she was loose. parasites do worry me, and all my girls are going to get yearly checkups by december.

can stool samples be frozen to store them? or how should I store them If I cant get to a vet right away after she poops?

she seemed to jump on the opportunity to scarf down and grab those mice, and that's the first time i'd offere a live mouse to her. the other times o offered live was rats, and that was hit or miss with her.

to everyone else, I agree, I'm sticking with what she will eat until I can get her to a good weight and dont see her backbone sticking up anymore. then I'll work on getting her to rats, thats second on the list.

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Stool samples cannot be frozen, they need to be fresh, & even if you wait for an appt'mt for later, call your vet & ask if you can bring in a stool sample to have it checked
ahead of your snake's check-up. That way when you take your snake in, he'll already have that lab work done. IF this snake has intestinal parasites sharing her food, you
may continue to see her backbone no matter HOW much you feed her, so don't wait too long to take care of this, for the sake of her health. As already mentioned, snakes
can pick up worms just by sliding thru the grass where other animals have contaminated the lawn...& as a matter of fact, so can we, if we're barefoot. When you call your
vet, ask them "how fresh the sample needs to be?" & whether or not it's ok to refrigerate it or keep at room temperature, & for how long prior to dropping it off.

I've always been told that is ok to refrigerate the stool sample, and to get it in ASAP. I think within 12 hours is best, but call your vet up and check with them. You shouldn't need an appointment for them to check the sample. As for switching to rats, I'd take it slowly and get weight on the snake first. After it is at a good weight you can start to switch. If your snake is eating live I'd start by getting to take prekilled. Once taking prekilled move on to F/T mice then rats. You can get some dirty mouse bedding to scent the rats with. You can also use the dirty mouse bedding to scent the F/T mice. When I switched my current snakes to F/T rats I used dirty bedding to switch them and it was really easy. Also make sure the temp on the rodents is body temp or just slightly above. I get a better feeding response when they are a little warmer.

My local vet is open 8am to 8pm, They told me to just drop off the stool sample any time during their open hours, no appointment needed. I dropped it off on a Sunday, when the office was open.

They emailed me within 2 days that the sample was negative for any parasites.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gocntry

My local vet is open 8am to 8pm, They told me to just drop off the stool sample any time during their open hours, no appointment needed. I dropped it off on a Sunday, when the office was open.

They emailed me within 2 days that the sample was negative for any parasites.

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Perfect! :gj: At least now you know for sure you're feeding the snake, not her "guests". :snake: