From mice to rats...

[Collins2602]

I have a graziani pastel that for some reason will eat ONLY mice. Stick a rat in there with him, and he retreats to the other end of the feeding uh.. "tub" (plastic rubbermaid storage tub.) But stick a mouse in there, and BAM! it's gone. He is definitely big enough for rats, but for some reason, he just won't eat them. At all. Ever. So...any suggestions on how to get him to eat rats??? I appreciate any and all advice. Thanks!

[muddoc]

The best advice I can give is to keep offering him rats at every feeding. If he does not take the rat, then pull it out and offer him a mouse. Some ball pythons will never convert to rats. I have a few in my collection that never would convert. I had to settle on feeding him lots of mice. On the flip side, keep your chin up, as I do have two female balls that finally took rats after they were a year old. They now eat nothing but rats, but my persistence finally paid off after a year, I just kept offering rats, and it finally worked. Ball pythons will be Ball pythons, they eat what they want when they want it, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Good Luck,

[Freakie_frog]

Are you feeding live or PK. If live try Pk. What size rat are you trying to feed? Are you feeding on a schedule i.e every Friday at 6.00 pm? If your not on a schedule migh want to get on one it really helps in long run. There are lots of little tricks you can try to convert them over but as muddoc said some never convert over. Try senting the rat with soiled mouse bedding, By rubbing the rat all over the bedding. If that doesn't work try placing the rat (PK or FT only) in a bag with the snake and leave it for a few hours. Still not eating? you can try braining if you have the stomach. Again braining only with Pk or Ft. Take a knife or something sharp and break open the brain case get the head alittle bloody and then try the the bag trick or just leaving it in the cage.

[Collins2602]

We aren't sure how old the pastel is. We got him from a "friend" who uhh....well....to be perfectly honest seems like he's a few fries short of a happy meal. He was what you would call a collector (he had 10 snakes in his little trailer! and he didn't make that much $) and didn't really take care of them very well. He fed them and stuff, but he would go weeks without cleaning the cages. It was gross. He ended up letting us have them because of some personal issues and he couldn't keep them anymore. So I said all that to say that he didn't know what the heck he was doing so there's not much he knew about the pastel. We were told by the guy who sold it to him that it is a graziani, but who knows if he was telling the truth. I do know it is of breeding age and size as it has locked up with our normal female MANY MANY times. (she's our BIG BIG girl) So anyway, he's big enough for small rats and that's what we were trying to feed him. When he wouldn't eat it live, we...uhhh...ahem...killed it and tried offering it to him that way. When my hubby killed it, it bled out through an ear, and he STILL wouldn't eat it. I've had success before using the "force-feed" method on reluctant feeders - you know, when you force open the mouth and basically shove the mouse or rat in the mouth. He had responded to that in the past with a mouse, so I tried it with the dead rat and nothing doing. So I'm kind of at my wit's end here. Buying 3 live mice is more expensive than buying 1 small live rat. Oh well. I'll try being persistent and see what happens. If he's picky then he's just gonna be picky and I can live with that. Thanks everyone!

[muddoc]

I would by no means try to assist feed an animal that will eat on his own. Especially one that is an adult with good body weight. If he wants mice, then that is what you'll have to feed him. If you can not afford to buy that many mice, then perhaps you could sell him and buy another pastel male that is a rat feeder. Good luck with your guy.

[lillyorchid]

I say if he is eating mice just fine, keep him on them. Reptiles aren't "cheap" pets by any means.

Also never, NEVER, NEVER force feed a snake that is willing to eat on it's own! That will only cause the snake to really stress out and that is not a good thing. The only time I can ever see or think of that force-feeding would be a good thing is when a snake is really sick or you really have a non eater and it's in one of those life or death situations when it really does need to be fed.

[frankykeno]

Heck I breed rats and I have two BP's that absolutely hate em LOL. They will ignore rats, hiss at them, hide from them, retreat to their hides or under the newspaper. Pop in a live mouse and WHAMMO...dinner time! LOL

As Tim said keep offering a rat first and if they want to, they'll go for it but some just never do. They are strongly imprinted hunters so there are just some that will not change prey types. I've even tried having live adult mice run around with the same size white rat pup to transfer scent. Nada....apparently BP's are no dumb bunnies when it comes to knowing a rat from a mouse (I swear Ailish actually glared at me wondering what in haydes was up and where was HER mouse LOL).

Remember he'll do just as well on mice as on rats. As long as his weekly volume of prey is appropriate for his size, whether it's one rat or multiple mice he'll do just as well on either.

[rabernet]

That's my girl, Ailish!!!

[Collins2602]

Okay, first off, to clear up something...the only times I did try to "force-feed" was when I did have snakes that wouldn't eat. I have a WC Texas Rat Snake, and that is the ONLY way she will eat. I've fed my Texas Rat Snake about 4 or 5 times since we got her, and if I open her mouth and stick the pinkie in, she'll latch onto it immediately. If I just stick the pinkie in the feed box with her, it will go uneaten all day and all night. I wait for at least a month or two of them not eating before I try that method. The only reason I tried it with my pastel was because I wasn't offering mice after he refused the rats. I was offering RATS ONLY and for a couple of months he wouldn't eat. Like I said, I then tried the "force-feed" method and it still did not work, so I called the previous owner and he said "oh yeah...that one is on mice." It would have been nice if he would have told me that before, but what can I say. The guy's one brick short of a full load. So that's how I knew to then offer mice. I believe nature knows best and I would NEVER "force-feed" (I actually consider it coaxing) a snake that will eat on its own.

And we can afford the oodles of mice we were buying, but I would prefer the snakes eat a meal that is more to their size.

Now for the update...
I actually have 3 BPs that preferred mice. One is a hatchling female, one is the pastel male, and the other is a normal male. I recently began breeding rats and mice to cut down on costs and we actually had some rat fuzzies. They just opened their eyes today. So I thought I would introduce the rat fuzzies to the mice in the mouse cage for a few minutes to get the mouse small on the rats, and then see what results I could get. The normal female hatchling ate one, the normal male ate two (he's still kinda small,) and the pastel male ate THREE!! I AM SOOOOOO HAPPY! Now I can buy small rats from my supplier, stick em in a small cage with old used mouse bedding for a few minutes, then it'll be bye bye rats! YAY!! *does a happy dance*
Thanks everyone for your input! Thanks Freakie Frog for the suggestion!

[frankykeno]

That's my girl, Ailish!!!

LOL yep! Well at least Ailish will consider a rat pup that has been hanging out with mice though eventually she refuses it...but at least she checks it out a bit. Little Muirne won't even go there! She just hisses loudly, hides her head in her coils and refuses to have anything to do with rats LOL. Those two girls though, you remove the live rat pup....put in their live mice....game on!