Quote Originally Posted by demjor19 View Post
Last night I offered my male Pastel BP a small rat. The BP struck and coiled around the rat...then the rat bit him. There was no damage done to the snake, but he was freaked out pretty badly and did not try to feed again that night. Anyway...I'm now going to start offering either freshly killed rats or F/T rats. This has been a thought for a while, but this has given me the ambition to follow through with it.

How exactly do you prepare and present a F/T rat? I have heard of people using hair dryers to thaw and warm them. How warm do you want the rat to be? Then you feed them from a set of tongs? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
When I first switched my bp to frozen/thawed, I would put it(inside a bag) in warm water for a few hours to thaw it, then put it in warmer water(not in a bag) just before feeding it to heat it up a bit. This is great if your snake doesn't mind wet food but I have read about some picky snakes. Also in my opinion if you feed your snake wet food you shouldn't feed it in its tank, bedding sticks to the food.

Now I use a hairdryer on a low setting to warm it up before feeding(still thaw it over a few hours in water). Not only is this easier, its dryer, much faster, and in my case it seems to get the snake in the eating mode too, probably because of the smell dispersing faster in the warm air.