Going from mice to rats..advice please.

[SilverWolf]

Currently we have 7 ball pythons. All are eating live adult mice with the larger ones eating 3 to 4 mice at a time. My boyfriend and I want to switch to rats but understand that some balls don't like to switch. We tried a small rat with his big female that is about 1000 grams. She didn't want anything to do with it. She is our best eater but not sure if the rat was too big or she just doesn't want rats.
Threw in a mouse right after we took the rat out and she tagged it right away.
So I am asking for any advice on the best way to go from live mice to live rats. As I have recently bought some rats to try and start breeding when they get old enough and if we can't switch to rats then there really won't be a reason to breed.

So any help would be great!

Thanks!

[kneepoles]

can you rub a mouse on a rat? swap scents? you know trick it into thinking "wow! what a big mouse! YUM!"

[Venenum bovis]

What you might want to try is getting rat pups. There about the same size as mice but smell like rats, that way it's there normal feeding size but gets them use to the rat smell. And if that still doesnt work get a plastic tuperware like container and poke some holes in it and stick the rat in it and put the lid on, then put it on top of yuor snakes cage and let it be for liek 30-60 min so that the snake can get use to the smell. Since your biggest is only 1000g make sure you get small or medium rats. Also you can tell if it's too big by how big around your BP is. Never feed them anything bigger then the thickest part of there body. Good luck


P.S. you might try feeding it at night when it's more active if you dont already do that.

[shadi11]

scenting sometimes works. when i had my boa he switched over easily. We have not had the same amount of luck with our balls. I have been told by many that you need to make sure they are extra hungry to get them to switch over. I have personally had snakes refuse rats after months. We gave in long before they were willing to. We do have others who will only eat rats. We have had some sucess with soft furred rats but i don't recommend them to everyone due to the fact you kind of have to breed your own and its hard to keep up with demand and yet not overbreed.

[bsd13]

One thing I've found helpful is to buy both rats and mice and keep them in the same bag when you feed f/t. I'm not sure if maybe putting the rat in a mouse cage (without the mice) for a while before feeding time might help, but it might be worth a try so they pick up the scent.

[Gloryhound]

Had good luck with most of ours! We pre scent for 10-15 minutes and verify the snake is awake. Then put the rat in. It does help to start with ones the same size or just slightly larger as the mice you feed, then working up from their. We swapped our 600+ gram male live feeder over and now he wants nothing to do with mice. On the other hand our F/T 600 gram male will not touch F/T rats! To figure he would give us the biggest problem moving up!

[rabernet]

I had a stubborn female that only took mice as well. I did two things for her. The first was advice that Kevin McCurley gave me. Take some mice bedding (just a small handful) and put it in her enclosure. Watch for her to start displaying hunting behavior - actively flicking her tongue, searching for food. Then drop in a small rat.

Worked like a charm the first time, and then she wisened up.

My most successful way to convert to rats was essentially "tough love". For the snakes that had good body weight, I simply stopped offering mice. I'd offer a rat, and if they didn't want it, the rat was removed - and no mouse was offered. The next week, rat offered, refused and removed - no mouse was offered. The longest hold out was about four weeks.

The picky female above does insist on white rats or beige hooded (guess close to white), but all the others who eventually got hungry enough to take the rat, all take rats every week now.

So, in my experience, the method that worked best was tough love.

[SilverWolf]

Thanks for all the advice. We will try a rat pup on their next feeding. I just hope someone eats it as then we will have to find a way to kill it and then freeze it. Since the female seemed pretty interested in the rats while in their tubs (bf took her out and let her near the tubs), I'm hoping she just wasn't into a rat that size. I'll let you guys know how it goes this weekend.

[771subliminal]

we took a mouse that was way under sized and fed it to her soon as she got it down i offered the rat. the feeding instinct was so great she just she just went after the rat hard. did this for a couple weeks and now shes all about the rats

[frankykeno]

I had a stubborn female that only took mice as well. I did two things for her. The first was advice that Kevin McCurley gave me. Take some mice bedding (just a small handful) and put it in her enclosure. Watch for her to start displaying hunting behavior - actively flicking her tongue, searching for food. Then drop in a small rat.

Worked like a charm the first time, and then she wisened up.

My most successful way to convert to rats was essentially "tough love". For the snakes that had good body weight, I simply stopped offering mice. I'd offer a rat, and if they didn't want it, the rat was removed - and no mouse was offered. The next week, rat offered, refused and removed - no mouse was offered. The longest hold out was about four weeks.

The picky female above does insist on white rats or beige hooded (guess close to white), but all the others who eventually got hungry enough to take the rat, all take rats every week now.

So, in my experience, the method that worked best was tough love.

We do the tough love method here as well. We do make sure this is a healthy snake that can do with a few missed meals if it takes awhile to switch over. I think our most stubborn mouser took 5 weeks to take her first rat. We do skip the first week though, just to give them a chance to get really primed to hunt, then week 2 starts with the rat offering. We make sure and offer nothing bigger than a good sized rat pup though. We want to watch and assess how the snake reacts to a difference in prey before we move up any further in size (this would be for a larger adult obviously).