I've been feeding Monty in the evening, usually before 9:00pm every Saturday. I feed him 2 f/t adult mice or one small rat (he's at 540 grams as of an hour ago), which seems to be the magic amount for him.

Up until 2 weeks ago I would get his food from a local pet superstore, and noticed that their f/t would really smell up the room when they thawed. Then 2 weeks ago I bought a bulk-pack of 50 adult mice from the local reptile swap (fun to keep in the freezer next to the kid's popsicles ). I was going to buy small rats, but they had run out before I got there. But now I've noticed that these new f/t mice haven't much odor, especially compared to the superstore bought mice.

So I've had to do more work to get Monty to strike these mice. But the 2 things that seem to help are 1) keeping the lights lower in the room to make him rely on his sense of smell over eyesight, and 2) make sure the mouse is warmer than room temp so that his heat pits see the mouse. Since doing these two changes Monty noticeably strikes hard at the mouse by instinct alone!

I hope this helps others!