Greetings all,

I have a 2 year old male Ball Python who has been growing fast and has gotten to approximately 2 1/2 to 3 feet long. He has been happily eating large mice, about one per week for a long time now and I was just curious if he is ready for small rats?

I purchased a couple of small frozen rats from Petsmart last week and tried to offer him one last week. At first he seemed interested...his tongue started to flicker rapidly and he started to get his strike pose on and began approaching the rat. He then appeared a bit confused. He tried approaching the head from the left, and then from the right, then backed off and became disinterested once he realized it wasn't his usual meal.

So I didn't feed him for another week hoping he'd be hungry enough to go for it last night, but the same thing happened, he just didn't go for it. So I bagged him up with the rat in a pillow case over night with half of the bag laying on his heating pad so he had a warm place to curl up. In the morning, I got him out and the rat was still there. From its appearance, it looked like he made an attempt on it over night but regurgitated it. Ended up having to throw it away. I still have one more in the freezer that I don't want to waste so I was hoping for some feedback from people.

I read on a few other boards about people thawing out a mouse with the rat to get the mouse smell all over it before offering it to the snake. Others advised to start the process by feeding the snake two mice in one feeding session for a few weeks then offer the snake one mouse and then the rat while he's still in strike mode. Any suggestions would be appreciated.