Quote Originally Posted by littleindiangirl View Post
... Next time, just try to make the head of the mouse warmer...
OMG... I fed him today... I was TOTALLY not expecting the kind of feeding response I got, lol... I did the little corpse dance with the mouse, not even for 15 secs, and he actually STRUCK! It scared me so bad I dropped both the mouse AND the tongs right on his head. I pre-scented the room last time, but I don't think I had the mouse warm enough, plus I removed him to a separate tank (I don't know WHERE I was reading that was necessary, but just about everything I was reading said to do it. Not removing them makes sense for these guys though...). This time, I put the fridge thawed mouse in hot water for ten minutes, then set them on top of his tank while I went to go get the hair dryer, so he would smell them (I was offering two adults, just to see if he would take them), and let me tell you, he definitely smelled them, and he was definitely interested! He actually came out looking for the mouse. So I took them over to the side and used the blow dryer to warm the head of the mouse a little more than the the rest of the body, and then opened his cage to dangle the mouse. Like I said, less than 15 secs later (possibly less than 10!) He struck at the mouse and tried to wrap it (I must have fooled him good that it was alive! Or maybe he was just humoring me, lol), and it startled me so bad I dropped everything on top of him. After I picked it up (luckily the tongs did not fall down all the way, since my hands reeked of mouse) I dangled the mouse again and he struck again! That time he didn't get a good grip and dropped it himself. I moved it to a spot that he could get to it easily, and he started eating it right away, head first. Didn't take over half an hour for him to get it down THAT time! I offered the other mouse, and he seemed interested, but not enough to eat it, so I took it out. Since he is under weight, how soon should I offer the other mouse again. I want to get him up to where he should be. I didn't think to try for a pic before I fed him, but he was definitely triangular, and you could see the spine (even though I fed him five days ago). A friend of mine said that he is probably a yearling based on his length? How fat should a snake that is 30" be? (the label at the pet store says baby, I checked yesterday when I picked up the mice.) Right now, (if it will give you a better idea of his girth) there is a noticeable bulge when he eats an adult mouse, you can see it going all the way down the body. I tried to get hoppers this time to feed him so I could offer more smaller prey items, but no one had any, and he was supposedly eating adult mice at the PS (it is also what I fed him this past Friday. I would think if it was too big, he would not have been so eager to feed today).

Anyway, I am just sooooo happy and excited because he fed so well... WOOT!