Rats scare snakes?

[jjsnakedude]

Its not very urgent but I was just slightly concerned.
Heres the story:
Around a month ago I bought a bunch of small live rats intending to have most of them as feeders and keep a 1.2 group for breeding. My normal female only eats live so I intend to keep them alive for her. I have tried to feed them to my two adult snakes but they wont strike or go after them. They look hungry and everything but won't eat. Everything is OK about them, I have already checked temps etc. I think the rats scare the snakes because the run around the cage and bump into the snakes heads and climb over their bodys. The only time the female fed it was when the rat held still and made small movements. It would be great if I could get her to eat so breeding could be a possibility. How would you fix this?

[llovelace]

How were they offered food before you acquired them? f/t, f/k?

[smd58]

sounds like a good snake to try a fresh killed rodent on, and feed with forcepts and just shake the rodent that little bit that she likes.

[bsash]

Yes, the rats can scare and stress out the snake by crawling on them and touching them. You could pre- kill them to make it easier on your snakes.

[mpkeelee]

yup, kill the rats and then offer. no need to feed live if they dont even take them that way. switch ot pre-killed and then to frozen thawed.

[jjsnakedude]

Im just afraid they wont eat the rat. I hate throwing rats away.

[EmJ]

If they don't eat the f/k you can stick it in a plastic bag and freeze it, then thaw it out and try again later. I mean, they're not eating them now anyway, right?