Truthfully, if the snake is healthy to begin with going a few weeks or even a few months without food is not going to kill it. I have not had a single one yet that wouldn't switch over to f/t between my boas or bp.
It's the giving in after a few weeks or a month or two and giving them live that makes them stubborn and less likely to switch. And I learned that first hand. After repeatedly giving in and giving one of my problem feeders live after refusing f/t for a couple months because I was so afraid he would starve himself to death it ended up taking me nearly a year to get him eating regularly once he did finally start on f/t. If I would have just held my ground a little bit longer in the first place then I would have had him switched a whole lot sooner.


I don't think I've heard of any snakes starving themselves to death if they are completely healthy, if they are continued to be offered f/t. If they are already sick and refusing, then yes they might. But in my experience they will eventually give in and take it, you just have to be more stubborn than they are.

And to note, I finally got my problem feeder eating and on f/t by soaking his rats directly in hot water. Apparently when they are wet they have an even stronger smell, so he'd snatch them up real quick when I did it that way, dry he just ignored them.

It might just be me, but it seems like a lot more bp owners tend to give in and go live compared to the way they do with boas and most of these types of posts end up getting tons of responses saying to go live instead of sticking it out for any length of time.