Trying a bigger live rat....

[ArabianOak]

My BP seems to only eat live. The F/T wasn't working out. I went to the local pet store today to offer another feeding and the smallest feeder rats seemed a little big...does this seem to big for him? Also, how long should I let the rat run around or stay positioned in front of the BP before one would decide he's not hungry? I know from other forums members advice not to leave a live rat/mouse in there.

[Sauzo]

Personally that looks small to me. Not knowing the weight of the BP, cant really offer a size. Generally its 10% the snakes weight or about as thick as the thickest part of the snake. As for how long to leave it in there, I feed all my snakes fresh killed so cant help too much there but from what I know, if the snake doesnt show interest in about 5 mins or so, i'd take it out. You definitely want to keep a hawkeye on it during the feeding process and I would keep a chopstick, dowel stick or pencil close by so if the snake does get a bad grab and the mouse/rat tries to spin around to bite the snake, you can intercept it with the pencil or chopstick in the rats mouth to keep it from biting the snake.

[KMG]

Feeding a feeder that is undersized is better than feeding something oversized.

I don't offer food that long, 5 to 10 minutes tops. But that's me. To each their own. I feel that if my snake has not shown interest in that time the chances of adding to stress is greater than the chances it will take the food after 10 minutes so I stop an attempt. I don't even leave f/t feeders to sit over night as I would rather save it for a snake that will eat it.

There is a lot of good reading here about different methods of heating F/T prey. Usually the heat signature is the issue and the prey is not hot enough for the snakes liking.

However some are just picky. When I got my BRB he required some work to get him fully switched to F/T but now he hammers them every time. My lil Hoggy has been a real pain and has been stuck on live. I tried everything but she is a pita. Recently when watering her plants she came charging out of her home striking the water. I thought well if she will do that now I bet she will do it with some F/T prey. Sure enough she did and ended up eating three. Now I just hope I can keep that going as tracking down and buying live feeders is annoying. She needs to get with the program.