Seeking advice for new BP owner.

[RedRabbit]

Hey! So I’m brand new to the reptile-owning world. I did SO MUCH research before getting my little guy, handled a bunch of other snakes, and really thought I knew what I was doing. And then I got mine and all that went out the window. I guess this is what first-time moms feel like??

My two biggest concerns right now:

1) I can’t get humidity levels to stabilize in my tank. I have a glass aquarium with a mesh lid. I have 2 water dishes, one directly below the heat lamp. I have covered 2/3 of the tank to prevent evaporation. I mist the tank at least once per day, have used soaked coconut husk mats under the substrate. And nothing I do will get the humidity over 35% for more than a few minutes. If I’m gone for a day or two it’s even gotten down to 15%.

2) I know BP are notoriously picky/bad eaters. Mine is no exception. I’ve tried to transition him a couple times to frozen/thawed rats (he was eating live pup rats from the breeder before I got him) with no success. Today I tried a live pup rat for about 15 minutes in the feeder tank and then gave up and put them both in his normal tank. They’ve now been together for a few hours, and rat actually just crawled his way into the hide with my snake. They’re apparently buddies now. I’m gonna leave him overnight (I’m pretty sure he’s too small to fight my snake) but I’m running out of ideas.... it’s only been about 2 or 3 weeks that I’ve had him, and I know he can go much longer without eating, but since I have yet to successfully feed him I’m starting to get worried.

Any advice or encouragement is greatly appreciated!!!

I would second the advice from those above, with some additional questions/clarifications. (And yes, this is exactly like first-time parenting, haha! Don't be discouraged, almost everyone hits the same stumbling blocks when they're first starting out.)

1) Humidity - Out of curiosity, what are you measuring your humidity with, and where have you placed the device or probe for measurement? Some devices are not as accurate as others. Piggybacking on Bogertophis's questions about temperature, same there - what devices are you using for measurement, and where?

2) Feeding - I definitely agree that it's best not to leave a live rodent unattended with your snake. The only exception would be mice or rats in the pinky and fuzzy stages, since they are too weak to do much of anything, but the general rule of thumb is that as soon as the rodent has its eyes open, then it's ready to bite, and rat pups are at the stage where their eyes are starting to open. Even if the rat pup you currently have is a little thing with the eyes still shut, then consider that your young snake is also probably scared and stressed out by its unwelcome new roommate, and is probably going to be less inclined to eat as a result. So yeah, time to evict that roommate.

[Edit: Whoops, some redundancy with Deb's response which I didn't see until after posting, but you get the idea, haha.]