I am so happy! Last night, Kaa (nearly 4 foot long adult male, rehomed to us recently) ate his first meal with us... and his first meal of F/T ever... with ease!

We have the ferrets out, and our tiny white one came up to Kaa's tank and was rolling around next to it, generally being ferretish. I watched Kaa come out of his hide and become very interested in our tiny energetic white ferret. She got one good look at him looking at her, and she took off to a different room.

Later that evening, Kaa was very active. I was going to wait for a few more days to feed him, and spend that time reading up about tips on switching to F/T, but his response to the ferret must have kicked his belly into over-drive. He seemed to be looking for a meal, if that makes sense.

So, I took the thawed ratty out of the fridge, and set it (in a bag) and a pot of HOT (but just as hot as a sink could get it) water for about 10 minutes. The result was a very warm little dead rat.

I brought it in and opened Kaa's cage. Right away he started to move into position. I jumped the gun and set it down, thinking that he would strike and coil. He came up and NUDGED it, over and over. Then he laid his head on top of it. I put my hand in to get the rat and re-try the feeding, and Kaa struck towards me! He put his head right back down on the rat. The damn snake was resource-guarding like a hungry puppy!

So, I let him be. An hour later, nothing had changed. I reached in and carefully maneuvered Kaa away from the rat via is tail area, and as he turned to see what the hell I was doing, I slowly removed the rat. I was very soft about it all.

Then, I held the rat's tail and dangled him inside, font rat legs touching substrate. I moved him around a bit, and Kaa followed excitedly. Then I made a "squeak" sound that (to my credit) sounded just like a rat that was startled, and Kaa HIT IT HARD. He coiled like mad, and then thrashed many times. He dunked the rat into his water bowl and held it in there for a bit... and the worked his mouth around from the middle of the rat to the head. He then swallowed it joyfully, and in very short time. He acted like he expected another one later that night... but he is happily resting and digesting today.

Not too bad! What a forgiving snake of my newbieness!