Quote Originally Posted by Salamander View Post
He will not sell me rats yet...says he will tell me when she's ready and expressed an opinion that 'scaring' her with a rat might make her a classic non-eater python.

[which I personally can't fathom happening, given her current gluttonous ways but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for her sake]
Oh what a load of crap! None of our ball pythons have ever seen a mouse in our care. You'd be amazed what they can swallow, although they should still be given appropriate sized meal, which general rule of thumb is as big around as the fattest part of their body or 10-15% of the snake's body weight. I've got some shy eaters that prefer smaller meals or stunned meals, but none that have ever been "scared" into a "classic non-eater ball python" because I offered an appropriately sized meal. Don't listen to anything those guys say. If you need answers, come here. Most of us have been keeping and breeding balls and other reptiles for many years and we are always here to help. I don't think there is anyone here who will say we don't know what we are talking about, although we all have our own varying techniques.

I love how he said that frozen rats go bad in a very short time. Although we only use f/t for younger corns, I've had feeders in the freezer for months at a time with no ill effects. Like you said, frozen meat is frozen meat. Also about them coming from a lab, get real. We supply a couple local businesses with rats, mice and asf and I would hardly consider our bathroom a lab. An experiment, for sure, but in no way is it a lab.

Quote Originally Posted by rabernet View Post
Both store's employees sound like typical pet store employees that really don't know as much as they'd like you to believe that they know.

I feed all of mine live, even hatchlings. Live rats, not stunned or knocked out. I've never had one injured - and I even feed off retired breeder rats to my largest breeder females.

I was fed the line "females are more valuable to breeders than males, so there are not females in the pet trade" line by a small mom/pop store near me, yet he has females (he doesn't know how to sex, and for the longest would not allow me to sex them, because I'd "sterilize" them by sexing them - funny how I haven't sterilized any of my breeders! LOL).

Most breeders aren't keeping female normals, because they're replacing them with morph females. Most of us will wholesale our normals to pet stores, males and females.

That is extremely light if her age is correct, though I'm not sure how Petco knows what the age is, considering their supply are captive hatched animals imported from Africa, and not supplied by local breeders. They cost Petco less than $10 a head.

Feed what you're comfortable feeding, but don't be scared off by the horror stories of feeding live. Most of the pictures you've seen are a result of an irresponsible keeper putting live prey in with their snakes for days, with no food or water for the rodent, so they eat the only thing available to them - the snake, if the snake has refused to eat them.

I've fed off over 15K live prey - mice, rats - none of mine have been maimed or killed by their food. If I felt that my collection was in jeopardy by feeding live, I would not feed live, as I have some nice critters in my collection, and I wouldn't put them at risk, if I believed it to be true. My personal experience demonstrates otherwise.

My hatchlings are started on rat fuzzies, and moved up rather quickly to rat pups, then small rats.

Congrats on your ball python - we need pictures though!
Listen to this man! He knows his stuff. Like him, all of our hatchlings are started on rat fuzzies and we have NEVER had a problem with them being scared into a non-feeder. Also as he said, feeding live isn't an issue if you are responsible. Feeding f/t is entirely up to you, though. If you can't stomach it and your ball is willing to accept f/t, all power to ya.