I had a pretty good idea around feeding my new ball python BEN which turned out/worked well for me so I thought I'd share it here and see if anyone else had done the same.

Last week a adopted a Ball Python from a great guy on Craig's List. He had actually adopted it from someone else less than 2 weeks prior but a life altering event gave rise for the need for him to find a home for his new pet. Bad for him, good for me!

He told me that while he had not fed the BP yet, the previous owners told him that the snake "would only eat live" rats. I'm not a girlie-girl but the thought of a scream, struggling rat and possible injury just freaked me out. I was going to try frozen first.

So I had a neat idea for warming the rat.

- first, I placed two pieces of 1" thick, long-ish wood slats on either side of a dinner plate and then rested the light on them to test the temp. My light is only for light, not heat, (I have a UTH on the warm side) so it's just a 20 watt bulb.
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- I then tested the temperature of the heat emitted by said light bulb by placing a digital thermometer directly under the bulb on the plate. I thought if the temp was below 100 degrees, I could warm the rat that way (after it was already thawed of course).

- the temp was 99.3 degrees. Yippee! I then placed the thawed rat on the plate, returned the light over top of it and gave 'er 7 - 10 minutes a side.
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- I thought this might also scent the tank so I dangled the tail over the edge of the plate and let it go in through the screen/bars ever so slightly.

- sure enough, within about 7 minutes, Ben arose from his slumber with tongue flicking wildly.

- I picked him up with the snake hook, put him in a rubbermaid sliding drawer thingy and then started teasing him by holding the rat (with tongs) and began dangling/wiggling it around him, bumping him and doing other things I though a rat might do. I ran it a few times over the rim and around the perimeter of the container and all of a sudden, BAM!

He grabbed the rat and spun around it so dam fast it actually made me afraid of him for the first time (as opposed to respectfully cautious). That was my first time feeding a Ball python. Little Josephine my corn snake likes to sniff, slide around it, make sure no one is watching ... but not Ben. He's all business!

So... to continue. Even when he had the rat in his mouth, I continued to gently jerk it about as if the rat was struggling for it's life. I stopped and then started again with the wiggling so that he might enjoy the "fight" and be tricked into thinking it was alive but was beginning to die. Finally, after about a minute, the "rat" gave one last shudder and that was it. I released the rat, closed the drawer, locked it up, and started hoping.

10 minutes later, I slowly opened the drawer and peeked inside.
Snakes 1, rats 0.

Ben had eaten the rat! I was rather happy with myself. My first time ever feeding anything bigger than a pinkie, and I had managed to switch him from live to frozen!)

Ya, I know it was just luck but hey.

Anyone else ever warmed and scented this way? Any other pointers?
Thanks,
Tracy : )