Help, ball python not striking at food

[Nephil]

As 303_enfield said, you're making these rodents WORSE by thawing incorrectly.

Thaw in COLD-COOL water only*- and only then, when they're soft & squishy throughout (feel by hand!), you can put them briefly in very warm (not hot or boiling!) water for a few minutes just to warm them up so your snake thinks they're alive. Many ppl also use a blow-dryer to quickly warm especially the head right before offering to the snake. (*you can also thaw in the refrigerator, but that can take a much longer time- it's much faster thawing in water)

For your information, there have been plenty of instances where spoiled rodents* actually HAVE spilled their guts all over when the snake grabbed them to eat, making for a big mess & a very unhappy & confused snake. (*whether they came that way from the source or were thawed improperly) Not something you ought to replicate...

How do I know your rodents are spoiled? To quote some of your descriptions:
"mice look grey inside"..."a mouse that was furless on a big part of its belly, it was squishy and had that funky smell like all the other mice did, but since the skin was so thin i could see right through it and saw a dark grey color."

Or better yet, take your snake's "word" (reactions) for it- he knows. BPs don't want carrion- they don't want funky spoiled dead stuff to eat.

Please understand, thawing snake food is NOT like thawing meat for your dinner. For one thing, we cook our food, so bacteria is destroyed, & for another thing, we don't eat whole animals.

The rodents our snakes eat are whole animals- their entire gastrointestinal tract is filled with bacteria that LOVES to grow once it gets warm enough- freezing doesn't kill it, it just keeps it from growing while it's frozen. It's hard to say if the rodents you got are good quality. There have been cases where sources haven't frozen prey quickly once killed, allowing them to spoil prior to freezing. But your method has been making them much worse. I think your BP will be more than happy to strike once you get your thawing method corrected. It sounds as if he's hungry, he just doesn't want rotten prey. Can't say I blame him. (gag)

OHHH well that makes sense, thought it's better to thaw in warm water, feeling kinda dumb now. I mean i did thaw in hot water right away just a few times, so the mice did look weirder afterwards so i stopped doing that. I have been thawing mice in warm water for a long time now, then i'd put them in hot (not boiling) water and after some minutes i'd let them dry in the towel. I'd choose hot water so it wouldn't become cold in one second, but i'll try to be more careful with the temps now, maybe my mistakes are the ones making them stinky.. They don't stink when still frozen in the bag. All the other times my BP would jump with a perfect aim to the mouse, only when it would become cool to the touch he'd look kinda confused, but after rewarming he'd strike right away. He rarely looked hesitant like the last feeding day, but he did eat the mouse alone in the enclosure after noticing it. As i said, the mice don't smell rotten, but they do smell like wet dogs especially if i warmed them up too fast. No matter how squishy they were there never was a messy organ leak out surprisingly, but i must admit that some would feel less yucky than others.. Maybe it was cause of the difference in water temp i'd warm them up at times. Thank you for warning me about this, and i am sorry for doing such mistake, i'll make sure to fix my thawing method next feeding day.