What the heck???

[Zoe]

Okay, lately my female IJ (my little one who as of now has not eaten a rat - has only struck at scented ones) has been quite interested in rats, but always drops them upon constriction.
She hasn't eaten since early July.
Now, I offered her a live young rat the other day (a little smaller than a small, I guess. Still quite young). And she grabbed it, constricted it loosely, and dropped it. The rat was unimpressed but unscathed.

I really don't know what is going on or what to do anymore! I don't know if she will ever develop any more interest in rats! She is getting quite skinny, too, I can see her spine now. She is not in any mortal danger of dying in the next few days, but she is definitely on the thin side. Now, I have a few courses of action. Should I:
a) keep offering scented rats every week
b) give in and give her a gerbil
c) give her a rat scented gerbil, and then a gerbil scented rat
d) other (explain).

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!!

Zoe

[Yasser]

Have you tried super heated prekilled?
Now I don't know the whole scenario but is this snake eating otherwise on mice? If so, there would be no reason to switch to trying gerbils in any way. You are creating an unneccesary third step. Just scent with mice on rats.
But avoid gerbils altogether. More than anything, don't go crazy offering this and that all of the time. 80-90% of the time the just need to be left entirely alone. BTW, if a snake is not feeding, it should also not be unneccesarily handled either.
But I think the reason why yours grabbes the rat and then dropped it is because once the snake got it in its mouth, it realized the heat signature, size and shape of the prey item was right but now the smell is not what it is used to. So workmon scenting with mice. The "big trick" I always use is to take the rat and put it in a mouse cage with well soiled bedding (I do this around rodent cleaning time anyway) and let it hang out there for a few hours. Maybe restrict some of the air flow into the cage so it gets a bit musty too. Then give it a shot and see what happens. It works very well for us. Perhaps it will do so for you too.
Good luck.
-Yasser

[Zoe]

Hi Yasser,
The females has eaten mice and chicks in the past, but up until I began fasting her, I fed her only gerbils because they are considerably bigger.
I've tried various degrees of scenting/heating. Right now I am doing the max (super hot, washed/dried rat super gerbil scented - gerbil fur and all) and she still drops it.

:S
Zoe