He took his first rat!!!!!!!

[smellati]

My ball, ate his first rat about five minutes ago of this post. He sure hesitated a lot. Took him about 20min to finally bite. But it wasn't pretty. My ball has no interest in dead prey, or even live prey if I hold it by the tale. He MUST hunt it himself. When he finally bit into the rat, he did it slowly and didn't constrict properly, so it took awhile for the rat to die. Didn't know rats scream so much. I felt bad for the rat, since his death took so long. But I'm excited that I have gotton my ball to switch to rats...Woohoo!!! But those screams will haunt me tonight.

I was hoping you guys would share your experience with switching to rats for the first time. And also how it went the second time you fed rats.

[Ginevive]

Congrats on the prey switch. I know from experience that it can be a pain in the butt.
Here's a suggestion. If you have to feed live prey, keep something like a pencil with you while feeding. After the snake constricts, you can quickly slip it into the rat's jaws before it gets the chance to bite your snake. I have done this and it works great. My little guy Ashes is flatly refusing to eat prekilled prey, but will gladly take a live large mouse (he is not big enough for rats yet.)
I am not a lover of live-feeding, only in hopeless cases. Ashes was off-feed for a month while I tried feeding prekilled; now he eats weekly. But it can be messy, is a general pain, and I greatly prefer my snakes who'll eat prekilled.

[xXGregXx]

my bp is like 2 feet close 2 3 feet long and i feed him full grown mice and i was wondering when should i switch him 2 rats? ikno its not going 2 b so00on id just like 2 kno

[Ginevive]

I have a 3-footer female who is taking smaller rats.
As long as the rat is not much wider than the widest part of the snake, you could try offering it. Bela was on mice when I got her, but she took her first rat (and all subsequent ones) just as if they were mice.

[smellati]

2-3feet? hmm. I think you should switch to rats. From what I have heard rats are more nutritious.

[xXGregXx]

my bp isnt thatt big i can make make a full circle with my middle finger and my thumb touching together soo0o0 he's not that fat i just dont wanna try n feed him the rat and have him not take it. i feed live and i sit there and watch wat happens if the mouse gets 2 close to him and looks like he's goin 2 big i wack the ****** against something n then he runz n my snake does the rest but with a rat its different

[smellati]

Just feed him mice, untile the biggest mice isn't big enough, or doesn't leave much af a lump, and then switch to rats. My ball is shorter than yours and he took it just fine. If your bp takes adult mice no problem and seem to not be too big, then switch to rats, he'll do fine. Remember, it's not the lenght of your ball that matters, only his/her girth.

[xXGregXx]

i fed my bp 2day and didnt look like there was much of a lump becuz he's pretty fat but i cant find any midadult mice. the only one's i can find are like the full grown and there huge. what should i do feed my snake 2 mice?

[smellati]

No, feed once a week. As long as the mouse is only slightly bigger than the biggest part of your snake, your fine. The ONLY condition where you would consider two mice, is when the biggest mouse doesn't leave much of a lump any longer. But I would personally switch to rats rather than feed two mice.

Note: I'm assuming the full grown huge rodents your talking about are mice, unless I read it wrong.

[dystopia]

I feed Jules medium rats at 37". Though my pet store medium rats are closer to small rat size. Jules has absolutely zero problems eating that size. It's about 10 mins from strike to rat tail flossing her teeth.

IMHO though, always better to feed undersize than oversize. BPs can easily live on mice, it can just be inconvient at times.

HTH

Jeremy