Feed Question

[PythonOutlaw]

Will be trying to feed for the first time Either Friday or Saturday. Will be trying with frozen Adult sized Mice.

Can someone please explain how to properly go about this!

At what point do I know the Mice are fully unthawed?

How do I procede to feed it to the BP? dangle it in front of him or just leave it laying in the enclosure?

[ballpythonluvr]

You will want to thaw the mouse in hot water. Make sure the water is not boiling hot or you will cook the mouse. Check to make sure the belly of the mouse feels a little squishy and not hard, this will be an indication that the mouse is fullly thawed. Then take your feeding tongs and simulate that the mouse is alive and danlge it in front of your snake. Try not to get it to close to the snake's head or it might become frightened and not take it. If the snake does not take it from the tongs then you can proceed to leave it the enclosure with your snake. Good Luck!

[llovelace]

How old are the snakes?
Were they on f/t before?

[mues155]

You will want to thaw the mouse in hot water. Make sure the water is not boiling hot or you will cook the mouse. Check to make sure the belly of the mouse feels a little squishy and not hard, this will be an indication that the mouse is fullly thawed. Then take your feeding tongs and simulate that the mouse is alive and danlge it in front of your snake. Try not to get it to close to the snake's head or it might become frightened and not take it. If the snake does not take it from the tongs then you can proceed to leave it the enclosure with your snake. Good Luck!

x2
make sure your thawing the rodent in a zip lock bag in the water, i know it seems like a common sense thing but sometimes new snake owners dont know.
A wet rodent can be hard to feed a snake, and unless your using newspaper a wet rodent will get substrate stuck on its body thus the snake injesting it, risking impaction.

Bottom line just make sure its warm enough, most of the time my snakes just like the rodent a little warmer then they will take it.

You can take the frozen rodents your using and put them in the fridge the night before feeding, that will make thawing go faster.

[RetiredJedi]

I don't use hot water at all any more. Feeding starts at 5am for me. I take the two f/ts out of the freezer, put them in a designated plastic bag, and stick them on the bottom shelf in the back corner of the fridge. When I get home at 5pm (or so) I take the f/t out of the fridge and put them in the snake room next to the enclosures to get the scent in there and get the f/t at room temp. At around 8:30pm, I open the enclosures and remove which ever hide they are under and the water bowl to make room, that way if they miss when they strike they won't hit anything with their mouth. Then I close the enclosures back up and take the f/t in the bathroom. I take out the first f/t, place it on the bathroom counter on a paertowel, and use a hairdryer for about 5 minutes to warm it up (concentrating a little more on head heat). I take the f/t down to the first enclosure, open the lid, and the BP usually has half of his body up in the air looking for his food. I Grab the f/t at the scruff of the neck and 5 seconds later it's wrapped up. I keep a hold of it at first and move it a little to make the BP think it's struggling. I then close that enclosure and do the process again.

[KLMuller]

I leave frozen in the refrigerator for 24 hours prior to feeding to thaw I use an old chicken egg incubator set to 97 for an hour our two before I offer to warm the rat up, hot water works, hair dryer works

Two of the ball pythons in my collection will only eat if I place it in their enclosure and move away, no dangling, a couple take from tongs like its alive, some won't even look at a dead rat so be prepared

good luck

[RetiredJedi]

...I use an old chicken egg incubator set to 97 for an hour our two before I offer to warm the rat up...

I like that idea. I thought about using my old heat lamp and letting them sit under the lamp for an hour before feeding but I don't have a snake room per se and I really don't want my house smelling like rats...

[KLMuller]

I'm not sure if my house smells like rats to be honest I've never noticed a smell during a feeding but I have a smallish rat colony so I may be used to it lol

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[RetiredJedi]

I apologize because I wasn't implying that your house has a rat smell. I was just refering to setting two dead rats out in the open under a heat lamp in the back beadroom where I keep my BPs. Hope you didn't take that the wrong way.

[KLMuller]

Not at all I just don't want to say it doesn't make a house smell like rats I don't think it does but I may just not notice.

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