On June 8, 2010 (just over a month ago), I bought 3 BP's from a local breeder. He feeds his BP's live, so I knew I would have to transition them over to F/T. The first one, a 1000g female pastel ate a small F/T rat 3 days after I got her and she has eaten 1 F/T small rat every week for the past 5 weeks. The other two are an 08' male bumble bee (700g) and 07 female pastel (1750g). I have offered them a F/T for two weeks after I acquired them and I backed off for the last 3 weeks to avoid stress and to let them get hungry. Today, I decided to feed them one live small rat each and start the transition next week to F/K and then F/T.

I bought small live rats and today, at 10pm CST, I put the small rat in each of their tubs. The bee curled up and wanted nothing to do with the rat. I watched for 5 minutes or so and he just kept getting into a smaller ball everytime the rat came near him. He was 700 grams when I got him and is still 700 grams.

The pastel female was 1750g when I got her 5 weeks ago. I tried to weigh her last week but she would not let me.......she was hissing and would not stay still for the life of her. I put the rat in just a bit ago and she just watched it. After 10 minutes, I took it out. She is alert and looking around but just didn't care for it.


Now I have the live rats. I have a spare 30 gallon tank I can put them in and I guess I can go buy the rats food tomorrow and try to feed my two non-eaters next week (live again). Do you guys have any advice?

On a side note, I just bought two normal females from the same breeder this past Saturday (4 days ago) and they both snatched the F/T rats 10 seconds after I put em in the tub. Thanks for any advice.