I moved my snakes up to gerbils before I put them on rats, theyre a little bit smaller, and arent really that agressive.. plus they smell more like what they would eat in the wild and are usually gone within a few minutes >.> I also have a snake hook I made from a coat hanger handy incase, or even to hold back the leg of the rat or food if it looks like its going to hurt the snakes. The only problem with that is finding a pet store willing to sell gerbils as feeder.. I know my petstore only did because they were trying to sell out of them, and i kept buying them as feeder so they gave me the feeder price rather then the 12$ a pop. I dont know if that helps any..