Switching from mice to rats

[Hypancistrus]

So my pied girl from the local Petsmart has now taken four meals for me in 3 weeks. She is still very underweight and I'd like to start getting some weight on her. I think to do that I will need to go to rats. She has taken three weaned mice and a small adult for me, all f/t. Petsmart was feeding her fuzzy mice, which is of course ridiculous for a yearling ball python.

Anyone have any tips for successfully switching her over to rats? Should I start with rat pinks or crawlers? She could easily take medium-large mice, I think... but I'd like to get her going on rats because they are a little fattier.

[Bigfish1975]

I've fed my snakes the same way and have had a lot of success with them making the switch. I start babies off on live hopper mice. I will increase the mouse size up to the point of a large mouse. I'll try to get them to take a rat pup (same size as a mouse) straight away. If the hesitate, I'll throw the rat pup in with some mice or mouse bedding to scent the pup. If that doesn't work, I'll wait til the next feeding and offer a smaller mouse. Then try to get them to take 2 smaller mice. next feeding I'll go to smaller mouse and little smaller rat pup as the second item.

Most of the time they switch right away but that's my process. Its worked for me and hopefully you can tailor it to work for you. Good luck

[AKA Dave]

All of mine went right over except my problem feeder. The first time I did a little "shake 'n bake" with various sized rats in a bag with a mouse. All were f/t, and different sizes for different snakes. Been on rats ever since with no pre scenting. I get a better feed response on rats too.

Dave