I had pet rats for years and hate feeding them live too. My 1 live eater has been a mouser lately so that's a lot easier for me. It sounds like your snake is still pretty young and I've never had an issue switching a you g one to frozen. What works best for me is wait until night when the room has been dark and quiet for a while, then when you offer the ft on tongs try to stay out of sight and make sure youre gripping it by the scruff of its back to its in a more natural position for the zombie dance. Don't get overly aggressive setting it on the snake of shoving right in its face.