Might take you a bit of hard love, but it's likely Ghost will switch as long as you're willing to put in the extra effort needed to make the food items seem enticing. Heating with the blow dryer until the body is about 85F and the head 100F has worked wonders on my boy's weak feeding response.
Essentially, what I did with him was:
- Thaw the rodent in water.
- Wait until rodent insides feel loose/head isn't cold (signs its completely thawed).
- Dry rodent off, first with towel then blow dryer.
- Keep heating until fur is dry.
- Focus-blast the head until its warm to the touch of your fingers.
- Offer immediately.
- Repeat and reheat about 4 times in one sitting, bodies don't hold heat too well.
- If the snake strikes, wait for it to entire its "trance" and make it "struggle" with some gentle pulling.
- If it doesn't after attempts to make the heated rat seem lifelike (zombie dance)...
- Leave snake for a week, possibly two if body weight is holding well.
With that above-and-beyond (as I've been told, for some reason...) effort, he's gone from timidly staring at his food and taking up to an hour to figure it out and get it down (and was only eating every other week for the breeder, likely due to him being so slow to eat) to an animal who all but lunges out of the enclosure once he knows I'm getting the rat in his reach and can have it completely swallowed in a span of about five minutes.
Edit: Worth adding that the addition to plant clutter to allow for roaming out of sight was another factor, I'd believe. Now he spends most nights camping in the cover outside of his hide, watching everything.
Reply With Quote