I have a 10+ year old female ball python that I adopted from our local herp society. She was fed live food her whole life. When I got her, I offered her F/T and F/K. She wanted nothing to do with it, so she continued to get live small rats. For whatever reason, she finally decided that a F/T rat was OK food and now takes them. I would always offer them to her and if she didn't eat I'd get a live one for her.

So, no matter what we, as keepers, want for our animals, you will need to be prepared to feed her live if that is all she will eat. When done properly, there is minimal risk to the snake. There are quite a few people here that only feed live rats to their ball pythons and if you want to learn how they do it safely I'm sure the help will come.