There is NO nutritional difference from feeding rats (despite some misinformed claims to the contrary) & your BP CAN be fed mice...the only reason many want to
switch to rats is that many BPs will only eat ONE item per meal, so when the snake is larger, one adult mouse is just not enough food. Yours is eating multiple mice
now, and is underweight, so personally, switching her to rats right now is the LAST thing I'd recommend doing.
What I WOULD do (for her safety*) is switch her from live mice to freshly-killed ones (yes, killed by you before offering). Next feeding, since you know she'll take
multiples, give her a small adult mouse first (a "hopper" is also less risk for an "appetizer"), then after she eats that, offer a fresh-killed adult mouse (use tongs, wiggle
it slightly but not aggressively towards her) & she'll likely wolf it down, from what you've said. *Why? Because the very LAST thing a poor-feeding & underweight snake needs is to get bit (injured) by prey...healing is hard enough for a healthy snake!
The first chance you get, take a stool sample to the vet, because I have a strong hunch that her failure to put on enough weight comes from sharing her meals with
intestinal worms!Yeah, gross and they're stealing her food & her health. Get that done.
It takes medication, very effective & fast fix.
Switching to rats at the moment is not important...& there are ways to get her on f/t mice, but do this ^ ^ ^ first.
(in charting rejected meals, I use "ref" -short for "refused"...might be easier to follow by others)
Oops, I almost forgot to include my "interpretive dance"-
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