I tried once in the past to get Gene to eat F/T, but it was horribly unsuccessful. He just looked at it like I look at asparagus. It wasn't food, it was some alien thing sent from the depths of Hell to torment him and stink up his otherwise pleasant day. However, this time I bought a couple frozen small rats from PetSmart and decided to try again. Keep in mind that a small rat is bigger than anything he's had before. I thawed the rat in the room with him, and then I warmed up some chicken broth and let it sit in that for about five minutes. I don't have feeding tongs so I held the rat by the tail and danced it around his cage for a few minutes.

He watched, tongue flickering wildly, then hovered, then curled into the classic 'S' shape we know so well. A few moments later, he struck! This was PROGRESS! He'd never done this before. So we promptly evacuated the bedroom and left him alone. Five minutes or so later, I looked and the rat was gone! Woo! My only worry is that he won't eat another one, so I'm going to wait two weeks before feeding him again.