2017 ball python will not eat anything larger than a large rat pup.

[GoldSheep]

The snake is a normal female, if that matters. I hatched her myself from a pairing I did a while back with a pastel (Graziani) to a normal female (which has a pretty yellow fade along her belly, so tends to brighten pastels very nicely.) She's a pretty steady eater and eats about every other week. She tends to come out to tell me when she wants to attempt to eat and "greets" me.

My issue is this: Though she's growing steadily, and she'll strike at something like a weaned rat, she doesn't seem to want to eat it. She rarely ever eats it. I managed to get her a weaned rat, she struck, it "killed" it, and then refused to eat it. So I warmed it up again. Two more times and she would not eat said rat, though she struck it. She's eaten a weaned rat only once. Mostly, it's strike, kill, refuse to eat it.

But if I put in a rat pup, she strikes and eats it fine. She should be graduating to larger rats, but for some reason prefers to chain eat, which is more expensive for me, but I don't think is a good habit for her to have and would like to break her of it.

I have tried to put more of a break between feeds, etc, but that doesn't work.

None of my other snakes in my collection have this issue at all. They are 100% fine with getting larger prey appropriate to their size. So I'm a bit baffled how to get her to stop wanting rat pups. (Hopper size, BTW, the size below weaned.)

Other quirks she has is I have to scent the rat with a rat from a particular pet store I go to. I've been switching her to frozen-thawed, but she will not take the rats from the frozen thawed unless I heavily scent it. Also, if she hears others get a live rat (some of them are slower to switch) then she refuses her frozen-thawed rat. She will take mice, too, but yeah... nothing larger than a large adult mouse.

So... ummm.... I need to break my snake's bad habits.

BTW, I have her on dry coconut husk bedding. (not soil) She gets a large water bowl, her humidity is fine. She is in a rack system and has a 36" tub with UTH. She's growing fine otherwise.

Some people say that snakes have no personality. She definitely does. I named her Aphrodite. She sure is living up to the name in attitude too.

[Charles8088]

The weaned rat that she "kills" but doesn't eat... how long do you keep it in for? My bp switches from "picky" to "not picky", and I would just leave the rat in the enclosure overnight, and most times she would eventually eat it.

[EL-Ziggy]

If she’s growing normally on mice and rat pups as a 4 y/o then by all means keep feeding her mice and rat pups! Why would you want to pay more for feeders than you have to? I wish all my snakes would eat rat pups. I’d save some serious coin. If you really feel the need to give her larger prey then don’t feed her for 2-3 months and then offer a weaned or small rat. She may have a change of heart. 😀