Please help!! I feel so guilty... I love her too much...

[Crazy4Herps]

My adult BP girl is an ok eater... she sometimes refuses but when I offer again she almost always eats it if she's hungry.

But she has a fear of white rats. I have been trying to feed this small one to her for a long time, but she doesn't even stalk it or look at it like she's interested. When it pokes at her hide box, she gets out of the hide and goes in her water bowl. I think it's the coloration that is freaking her out.

So I just put the rat in for the 4th time (I wait at least 3 days before offering again, and in the meanwhile I fed her a black and white rat which she ate readily), and she's out of her hide, poking around looking for ways to get out, avoiding the rat. It's been about 20min, she's still trying to get out.

Should I leave it in for longer? I was thinking a couple hours. Don't worry, I am here in the room with it, and in the time we've had the rat (a long time), it has been really friendly. I doubt it will hurt her, and if it does, I will know and immediately take Cu to the vet.

I love her too much! I feel like such a terrible person when I leave the rat that is scaring her in. What should I do?

[Crazy4Herps]

Another thing I should say:
I would bring the poor albino rat back to the pet store in exchange for another, but the poor thing is very mentally sick. It got out of its cage last week and was out for about 5 days until we found it. It was starving. Ever since then, it has been swaying back and forth and seems very disoriented. I really want to put the poor thing out of its misery, but I am NOT going to be the one to put it out.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Usually if a BP does not eat within 20 minutes chances are it will not eat, no reason to stress her more unnecessarily, just remove the prey and wait until next feeding day (seven days) before offering again.

Keep in mind that if you offer too soon after a refusal this usually only contribute to stress the animal even more, leading to more refusal.

BP do skip meal every now and than and even fast for weeks and months at the time, just make sure your husbandry is optimal and keep offering once a week.

As for the rat if he is suffering you need to put him down.

[hoax]

Usually if a BP does not eat within 20 minutes chances are it will not eat, no reason to stress her more unnecessarily, just remove the prey and wait until next feeding day (seven days) before offering again.

Keep in mind that if you offer too soon after a refusal this usually only contribute to stress the animal even more, leading to more refusal.

BP do skip meal every now and than and even fast for weeks and months at the time, just make sure your husbandry is optimal and keep offering once a week.

As for the rat if he is suffering you need to put him down.

I would second that. I am not attacking you please don't take it this way. Why would you stress the snake that way? Why does it matter if the snake is eating white black yellow or fuchsia rats? I would just give the snake what she wants. You seem to care very much about your snake just feed it regular rats. That is just my opinion.

Mike

[Argentra]

Hmm...is this rat an albino and not just white in color? I ask because the swaying isn't a mental problem, it's the way red-eyed rats see things better. They sway their head from side to side to get a wider picture of things because their vision isn't as good as dark-eyed rats. Believe me, being gone for a few days isn't going to affect a rat mentally unless it gets into poison...and then it would have shown MUCH more serious symptoms.

As for the rat and snake, I would give it up and just stick to colored rats. Some snakes just decide that they don't want anything to do with certain types and colors of prey. Trade the white one in for a hooded or something.

[hawaiianice99]

some snakes wont take certain color food.

[pillowtalk6188]

i know what you mean with your mouse. i used to buy a few at a time so i wouldn't have to go to the pet store and i assumed they would be ok for that length of time without food. they do get kind of "letharjicky". my snakes can always tell if there is something wrong with the mouse. since then i buy mouse food. if one of the mice ever has a bite on it the snake will not take it. if the mouse is acting weird due to dehydration or it is starving, the snake will not eat it. they can tell the mouse is sick. if the mouse is still acting like that it will probably die soon.

you can "humanely" kill it by putting it in a small tupperware (as small as you can find that it will still fit it's whole body into) and spray some airduster into a small hole cut in the tupperware. the mouse will not feel any pain. humans use airduster to get high. just hold your finger over the hole till the little guy is out. be sure to shake the tub around a little before you take him out, if he is not dead and becomes "coherent" you will just have to do it again. this is a method i have heard people use for p/k.

[Pandora]

As far as I'm concerned, snakes don't need their eyes to see. It's pretty much all done through their heat pits. I don't know if they're actually capable of distinguishing colour differences. Maybe they smell different?

[ohyeahnow]

My adult BP girl is an ok eater... she sometimes refuses but when I offer again she almost always eats it if she's hungry.

But she has a fear of white rats. I have been trying to feed this small one to her for a long time, but she doesn't even stalk it or look at it like she's interested. When it pokes at her hide box, she gets out of the hide and goes in her water bowl. I think it's the coloration that is freaking her out.

So I just put the rat in for the 4th time (I wait at least 3 days before offering again, and in the meanwhile I fed her a black and white rat which she ate readily), and she's out of her hide, poking around looking for ways to get out, avoiding the rat. It's been about 20min, she's still trying to get out.

Should I leave it in for longer? I was thinking a couple hours. Don't worry, I am here in the room with it, and in the time we've had the rat (a long time), it has been really friendly. I doubt it will hurt her, and if it does, I will know and immediately take Cu to the vet.

I love her too much! I feel like such a terrible person when I leave the rat that is scaring her in. What should I do?

I agree with the advice of 20 minutes and waiting 7 days. If you watch carefully it probably won't hurt her. Problem is you want to avoid a vet visit. If the eye got bitten this would be bad for the snake. Once bitten the snake may become afraid of the type of prey that bit it.

Good luck, be patient, it can be frustrating.

[tweets_4611]

Like everyone else said, I would just try to not get white rats if she won't eat them.

But on the note of the rat getting out, I personally wouldn't feed my snake a rat that had been missing for a few days. There is no telling what the little guy got into. I'm guessing since you still have him he didn't get into any posion, but that is only a guess. There are many things that rats can get into, and I just don't think I would want to take the risk of feeding a rat that could have been exposed to so many different things that I don't know about.