Quote Originally Posted by Deborah View Post
No everyone is not jumping to live, but people are rather suggesting to try live (that’s different and based on experience), there is absolutely NO REASON to assist an healthy BP.
I exaggerated a bit. Many people said try live without any details other than the person is assist feeding. I guess I just wanted to here more details before people suggested trying live prey. How long since the snakes last meal and what size was it? How old is the snake and what is its current weight? How many refusals before the first assist feed? How long do you wait before offering again? How are you preparing the F/T mouse?

Quote Originally Posted by Deborah View Post
Assist feeding should be done as a LAST RESORT when everything has failed and the health of the animal is declining.

In this case as I suspected (hence my questions) there is no reason to assist, there are husbandry issues. Even when solved if the animals are still not eating assisting will still not be the answer.

Also when acquiring a new animal the priority is to get them to eat not switched, switching should be done when the animal is eating with consistency and is well established.
I was in no way condoning the assist feedings. I was pointing out that maybe moving to live was not necessary just yet. For all we know based on everything I have read on this post the snake refuses and is then assist fed, every 7 days. If that is the case I think fixing some husbandry issues, presenting a room and trying a F/T heated to normal mouse body temp would be a solid plan. Obviously if the snakes health is declining then offering live is probably the best bet to get the snake to eat.