mice to rats......

[lightningtiger09]

hey, can anyone help me out here. For some reason one of my females seem to absolutely hate rats. Ive had her for about a year and tried tons to get her to eat rats but she wont. Can somebody help me with this?

[Smulkin]

I can offer what I had to resort to today to get the opposite results. Kali (Blood) doesn't like mice and there were absolutely no available pups or pinkies in the four places I tried over the last few days. I picked up what was a potentially pregnant rat in hopes of freezing some of the offspring for future use once they got to the appropriate size. Also got a mouse the right size for her. She had no interest at all in the live mouse. Nor later in the freshly bonked one.

So I took the freshly bonked mouse in me handy grippas and rubbed it on the rat - who oddly didnt seem to find that in the leaset bit odd. Reintroduced the now rat-smelling mouse into her enclosure and when I came back in a little while it was gone. So take that bonked rat and terrorize mice (or her preferred food item) with it by rubbing it against them then give it back to her and see if the more familiar scent triggers a response.

[lightningtiger09]

i tried that with a frozen mouse but it still didnt work. She bit it but then left it.

[lightningtiger09]

lol. Speaking from experiance? All my other snakes were fine but not this one.

[lightningtiger09]

i know wat ur talkin bout way to much!!!

[Smulkin]

Hmm never tried it using a frozen for scent - not sure if that would make more than a negligible difference but might be worth a shot. Are you offering live or pre-killed? What stage is the mouse in (pinkie pup etc)? Just trying to brainstorm . . .

[JLC]

If you don't want a live mouse to use for scenting the rats, then go to the petstore and ask them for a little bag of their stinkiest, dirtiest mouse bedding. Do a little shake-n-bake with your rat in that stuff and see if it helps.

No matter what you try...don't keep trying new things every day or two. If your snake refuses a meal for whatever reason...give it a week (or whatever your usual feeding schedule is) or so before trying again. To offer food every couple of days is usually counter-productive and the snake's refusal could have nothing to do with the type of prey.

Good luck!

[Marla]

You can also try looking for a product called Mouse Maker that will scent the rat for you, if you don't have live mice available for scenting.