Everything I am about to tell you is strictly from experience:
I bought an adult female ball python in November 2011. She was raised on live rats and even has scars on her skin from them biting her. I was ignorant to ball pythons when I bought her, period, so I figured live was the ONLY option. I fed her live about 6 times before I switched to frozen because:
1. My mom couldn't handle the scream she claimed she heard.
2. I didn't feel like baby-sitting her during feeding.
3. All the warnings & suggestions that frozen is better.
The first time I fed frozen, she seemed like she didn't want it. You have to wiggle it until they snap at it because once they snap at it they think they struck it (hurt it) and now they wrap around it and constrict it so they think they are killing it. (all experience).
It took me about 30 minutes of wiggling it and making her think it was alive but in the end... Success!
The next time was similar but not as long... maybe 15 minutes.
Now I feed her frozen religiously on Wednesday, she knows when its coming, and she strikes it and coils around it and eats it immediately.
From December-February she wouldn't eat and I was told this is normal as it is a hibernating type season. She was healthy and everything (she really worried me so I called the vet) and once it got closer to spring she ate and I was SOOOO relieved. So if yours goes through this process don't freak out like I did. Good luck dear!
Hucklecookie
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