Quote Originally Posted by Nixon View Post
Medusa had finished shedding 2 weeks ago. She hadn't eaten that week making it about 3 weeks without eating. I know that's fine. Snakes can do that. But now it's going onto about a month without feeding because I've been trying to feed her small live rats after she's fully shed...

I cleaned her cage a few days ago to make sure it wasn't the smell. I tried feeding her in her tank - same thing. I tried feeding her in a separate - same thing. I've tried doing it at night - same thing. I've tried doing it with the heat lamp on - same thing. With the heat lamp off - same thing.
That's a lot of stuff thrown her way in just 2 weeks. If your snake refuses a meal it's easier, on both of you, to just wait until the next scheduled feeding day to attempt again. Bombarding her is only going to compound the problem - if there even is one. It sounds like your girl is completely out of feed mode and purely defensive towards rodents now. Sometimes offering a smaller meal will get them back on food earlier but not always. Sometimes a different prey type will too but a lot of folks don't like to switch around once they're on rats. The main thing is to not panic and throw all these different options at them too fast or you're likely to just extend the fast.

If I were in that situation, with a snake that only fed on live and I wasn't breeding my own rodents, I would personally ditch the rats and get an adult male mouse. This will prevent the rodent from outgrowing your snake should the fast last more than a couple weeks while also minimizing your extra care for rodents. Once the mouse is finally taken I'd wait a full week, maybe even two, and get a freshly weaned rat to repeat the process. I'd also keep a handful of the dirty bedding the mouse was in and toss that in with the rat to get a bit of scent transfer too.