Kahless has reverted to eating live mice.

[Pareeeee]

Kahless, my 2-year old BP, has become extremely picky. When I bought him as a baby he was a vigorous eater. He quickly and easily made the change from live to frozen, mouse to rat.

He was almost a year old when he stopped eating. I figured he was just being a picky eater like most BP's but when he started losing weight and getting skinny I started to worry. I was forced to assist feed him a few times to get his weight back up, but eventually he refused that as well, and I didn't want to force him.

Just over the last two months or so he has finally begun eating on his own again, but the only thing he will take is live mice. I give one to him once a week instead of the preferred adult rat every two weeks. While it's great that he's finally decided to eat again, I really want him back on frozen rats. I have tried thawing the rats and mice together, so that they will smelly 'mousy', but he won't take them.

I have tried everything, braining, scenting with mouse, scenting with our hamster's dirty bedding, wiggling it around, just leaving it to the entrance of his hide, in the enclosure, in a feeding tub, covering his enclosure...he just won't take a rat anymore!

At least he's not skinny anymore, which is a huge improvement, but I'd still like him to be able to bulk up a bit more.

Any help would be much appreciated!

More info:
- He is 40" long
- Always sheds in one piece
- Enclosure is a 38qt tub
- Two hides, one on the warm side and one on the cool
- Warm side has a heat mat on a thermostat, at 95F
- Aspen substrate
- I mist his enclosure regularly

Some recent photos of him:

[bigt0006]

I have a male desert enchi that ate frozen when i got him and all of a sudden stopped and started eating live. No clue why though

Sent from my N9100 using Tapatalk 2

[wescoast]

Is that a normal. Wow so pretty.
I have two snakes that are being difficult to but on frozens. I havent tryed as hard as u but I will have to soon. I dont want my babies getting hurt

[Zach Cedor]

I would check out this article by justin kobylka!

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?t=210216

[Zach Cedor]

Also have you tried prekilled rats?

[Pareeeee]

@Zach that article is very interesting, thanks! It makes so much sense! I'm actually going to share it on another forum.