do you mean scent it with a mouse. And my babies from 5 and 6 month olds both eat small adult mice and are about as big as yours ( if it is indeed 24 inches) so a rat pup should be fine.
I too am switching to rats for the nutritional value just had to find the rats first.
Yes scent with mouse. And he is not very wide though so when I go get the food a little later I will see what they look like I'n person and decide. Is it true your can't feed the snake food that is fatter then it?