From mice to rats

[jotay]

Well tonight was the big night, the switch from mice to rats.
Ozzy is about 8mos old and I had him on adult mice up until now because I am of the school that adult mice have more calcium than weaned rats so I held on until I thought he was big enough for a small adult rat.
And him being Ozzy he wasn't gonna miss a meal and after a moment or two checking it out ( it was a brown rat, no less) he nailed it and tried to eat it butt first, after a few mins. he whipped it around and took it head first.
Now some of you know how I always say he has such a small head and pencil thin neck, well I didn't think it could expand that much but it did.
Put him back in his cage and he went right to the water and drank for like 3-4 mins straight then went right to the hot hide and is napping.
So hopefully he was made the switch

[Marla]

Cool. I got the big unnamed bp to eat her/his first frozen/thawed rat tonight, so it's a good day for feeding all 'round.

[Aaron]

I also made the switch last week, went off without a hitch. I REALLY hated whacking the thing though, it was actually having seizures when I put it in the cage. Not cool but it seemed to attract the snake.

[iceman25]

Congratulations!

[RU_snake_guy]

i remeber when i first got my ball to eat live mice, i decided to whack mine too. it skared the hell out of me and my ball. lol. but now knuckles is doin great, luvin his new 55 gallon house, and is about to shed very very soon. i hope tomorrow. :-D soon enuff, he should be eatin his first rat also. im xtremely xcited about it. i feed him live mice, he fares well with then and takes no beatings from them either, hes a real fighter! lol, at least i like to think so anyways

[hhw]

I also made the switch last week, went off without a hitch. I REALLY hated whacking the thing though, it was actually having seizures when I put it in the cage. Not cool but it seemed to attract the snake.

You could always try using carbon dioxide. There's lots of instructions on the net on how to do it but, the short version is,
1) Get a garbage can.
2) Get a margarine container. Cut a hold in the lid. Fill it with water and then put the dry ice inside. Set the container down in the garbage can, covering the top to let it fill with the carbon dioxide.
3) Wait a few minutes, put the live rodent in, wait a minute or two, then get the rodent out and air it a bit so the smell of CO2 comes off it. Make sure it's actually dead, since if it regains consciousness it may experience suffering. Also, be careful not to inhale any of the CO2 yourself.

I was going to use CO2, but the pet store was out of mice so I just bought a frozen and I was lucky that Ippo accepted it. (after 5 hours of thawing and an hour or two on a spare heat mat of course)