color of mouse matters?

[Ginevive]

I really do not think that my young '03 female will eat rats that have any white on them. Whenever I have thawed out a baby white rat, she has infallably refused it, even getting scared and balling up. But when I try giving her a f/t brown rat, she always tackles it. This is based on my observations that go back a few months, when I was still feeding mice. She would never touch a white mouse, or even a piebald one. but if you got rid of that mouse and tried feeding a black one, it was eagerly eaten.
HOW can bp's differentiate between mouse/rat colors?! I thought that their eyesight was too poor and that they just relied on heat-sensing.

[Marla]

It seems that some bp's will imprint on a particular prey item to the point of refusing others. My first bp was picky like that, too. As long as we fed her what she wanted, though, she rarely missed a meal.

[BallPython713]

I've fed mine a varitity of different color mice...from white to black and anywhere in-between and always took them down. I guess it just depends on the snake.

[JLC]

I've heard other stories about snakes being particular about the color of the rodent. Their eyesight isn't their primary means of hunting, but it's not so bad that they can't tell dark colors from white. I'm not sure why some care, though!

[Pirranha]

could you put something on the rat or mouse to make the white part look dark?like a harmless powder or something?Seems like a shame to waste all the rodents that have white on em.

[Ironhead]

When I first got my BP I was told that he would eat nothing but white mice. Well, after a few months my pet store ran out of white mice and only had black & grey mice. Took the chance since this was all they had, but was no problem, Monty Joe gobbled the black and grey one's with no problem.

[Hoomi]

So far, I have not noticed any color preference on prey with Phil. He seems just fine with eating any of them. Magellan hasn't eaten as many times as Phil has, but both took a white mouse last time I fed with no problems.

[Mort]

My guy doesn't care about color. Good thing, since the store where I usually get my feeders always seems to have different color rats.