Debating switching adult to live

[RobertsKitty]

I have an adult ball that I am considering switching to feeding live. Whenever I thaw his rats, no matter how hot I get them he strikes repetitively at my hands/body even with the long feeding tongs. If I leave the rat in his tank I only get about a 10% successful feeding rate. Ideas?

[Mr. Misha]

What's your setup like? How are you heating the terraium? Also provide temps and humidity. A photo of the enclosure would be awesome as well.

Was he eating F/T before or has it always been a struggle? Personally I prefer to feed live because it works well for me and my snakes but everyone has their own way of doing thing. Plus, defrosting always grossed me out.

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[RobertsKitty]

It is a divided T8 heated by Flexwatt. The hot side is 92 the cool side is 84. Humidity stays between 30%-50% I mist up to 75% when shedding signs start. His humidity would probably stay more regular but he's a water bowl tipper so it fluctuates.

He's always been snarky about aiming for my hand instead of the rat and recently he's gotten where he will strike at my body just for grins and giggles. He's not hand aggressive and only strikes at my hand when I'm holding food. He's been on f/t for the year I've had him.

[Cyndymei]

Your heat signature is probably much stronger than the rat's and that's why he's probably striking at you. I would suggest trying to heat the rat up after thawing with a blow dryer, that works very well for me. Neither of mine go after my hand, but had issues finding the head of the rat.

[RobertsKitty]

I've tried using a hair dryer and hot water neither seem to work.

[ElliotNess]

Try live. I notice mine are more apt to make an effort striking and wrapping live. I am going to be doing more live simply because I have racks of them now.. it removes the cull and freeze from the equation. Boas are still getting fed F/T cause its easier and they eat anything.

[Daigga]

I give Kirby f/t and she takes it like a champ, but Chelsea came to me off food for over a month or more and refusing to react at all to any attempts to feed her f/t. Switched her to live and got an immediate reaction. She's now a very reliable eater, even if she pokes at the rat for a while after she kills it (little weirdo). However, just because the live feeding works so well with Chelsea doesn't mean I would switch Kirby to live, since her feeding response is already pretty good with f/t. I know a lot of people don't like the idea of feeding live, but sometimes it just works better.

[ElliotNess]

My pewter WILL NOT eat F/T. Pretty sure he would die before but I will try because I will have to start making the live into F/T before they get too big. However all my others take F/T. If I want my females to take a second meal, a live one will do it no problem. But that is a rare occasion if they are still cruising...