a little help

[t6venom]

2 things , 1 i have 2, 4 to 5 week old High Gold Ball Pythons . one just shed last week and the other is in the middle of her shed. the dealer was feeding them live "hoppers". i would like to feed them frozen mice. on sevral attempts Alexis (the one who already shed) refuses to eat the f/t mouse.

so here are my questions :

1. is there a place i can order live hopper mice on the net , the petco here has only large mice and they are bigger than i belive she can handle . and being the only pet store in my area i am in a bind to find appropriate sized rodents. BTW i have tried prescenting the room , to no effect.

2. if i cannot get live feeders how do i go about making her eat them . i was told by petco that if i had to i could "force them to eat them" by forcing their mouths open . i am unsure as to ,A. how to do this or ,B. if i should do that or ,C. if it can be done .
i am greatfull for any help i can get its been 2 weeks scince she ate witch was right before i got them and right before the shed's

thanx

[BAD Morphs]

No never force feed unless you have exhausted all other options and she is losing weight!! I have used a few tricks to get mine to eat. I read it on here so I tried it and it worked but the first idea is not for the faint hearted. With that being said try and put a hole in the f/t mouses head to release the smell/taste of the brain matter to the snake.(that worked for me) Also if you want to try to switch from live to f/t. Try it in steps. Try knocking a live mouse in the head either by flicking it pretty hard or hitting it with a hard oblect like a screw drivr handle or so forth in the head. It will still be alive but not fully able to walk. They just like twitch. If she eats that then try a f/t the next time just wiggle it a bit and it will almost be like the stunned one from the week before. I feed all mine live but stunned so that there is no chance of the snake getting injured by a biting mouse but they will eat f/t too so it is really whatever I can get. There are a few websites that sell frozen mice in bulk in whatever size you want and ship so just google feeder mice sellers or some type of combination of that. I hope this helps!

[Spaniard]

Please do not try to daze the rodent as describe above. Not only is it inhumane but your snake is perfectly capable of disposing a live mouse without it.

[mooingtricycle]

Ball pythons can eat small adult mice usually right out of the egg. You can feed prey as wide as the snake is around. ( A bit bigger usually isnt harmful, but if you are unsure, or not experienced enough i say just stick with the widest part of the snake, its a safe bet)

id just try live, and work your way to prekilled and then frozen thawed. sometimes it takes a bit of patience.

[t6venom]

i will try the live thing and see what happens , and i will not knock them overthe head i have pet rats and would not be confrtable with that

[psycho]

is not really force feeding is called Assist feeding which does help...if your trying to switch...they dont eat it because they notice something is different...but once they eat the first one they'll know is the same thing...all you need to do is grab them by where the neck starts and gently introduce the mouse's head in its opening from its mouth...when the head is in, leave the snake on the floor and it should honk it down...if it throws it back up then you might need to feed live...force feeding is when you push the mouse all the way down the stomach of a snake ...Assist feeding is a different technique...hope it helps