Switching from mice to rats.

[mango]

Ok I'm sure this has been posted before so my apologies in advance, but, I'm trying to switch my girl to just weaned rats. They are a little bigger that the adult mouse but would make a nice tummy filler for her. Their weights are a match. The prey is about 1/5 of her total body weight. We've tried p/k and we've tried f/t. We've doused the rats in live mouse scent but all we can get out of her is her smelling it from head to toe and then laying in a corner waiting for something different to eat or waiting to be put back in her enclosure. Does anyone have any tricks or suggestions on how to get her switched? I want her on rats. I want that growth that comes with her eating them but I'm not having much luck with her. We've made her wait 3 days since the last time we offered. Should we wait some more or go ahead and offer again? Help please? I've got a picky snake.

[Solid Snake]

put her in a rubber maid contaner not too big, leaver her in there for maybe for an hour, put the rat in front of her hide and wait. you can try it in the dark too. It always works for me. You should have started rat pups when you first got her.

[zouleous]

My ball I just got had his first rat last week ...he took it with no problems. I was having problems getting my hogg island boa to eat though and this is what I tried:

I put him in a small box (I think a network card box) that wasn't very tall so he's want to crawl up the side of the box and ignore the food item. I put in a f/t mouse fuzzy and closed it up...btw it was set inside his enclosure so temps would stay right and he wouldn't escape if he found a way out of the box. Morning came and walah! He's sittin in the box alone fat belly and all with a look like "what did I do"?


You may want to try a similar tactic to get him on rats...but if you're going to leave him in there it would certainly have to be prekilled or you will have a dead snake by morning guarenteed.

Z

[stkkts]

I would have suggested the mouse scent on the rat, but you already tried that. Using that technique my BP switch over to f/t rats and f/k rats after 5 years of live mice.

[mango]

thanks z. I might try that.

Solid: I do feed in a rubbermaid and I do feed f/k or f/t only. I couldn't get rat pups when I first got her and now she's too big for them.

stkkts: she's so picky she won't even eat a rat off of a little pile of mouse bedding.

I don't know what i'm gonna do i just want her to eat the rats sooo bad. She aggravating me beyond belief.
Thanks everyone.

[Solid Snake]

keep trying...maybe go a week off feed and introduce a rat then, maybe by the time u give her it, she'll be hungry. If you're desperate, try that. It sounds a bit inhumane for starving her but they can go off feed for months, just dont give her mice, even though u know she might be hungry.

[snakedude_03]

for me.. when i switched my snake from mice to rats.. all i did was i thawed a rat with a mouse, so the scent would rub onto the rat. and i only had to do it twice before the snake would start eating the thawed rat without the scenting process.

[David Kwok]

What I do to get my ball from mice to rats is starve the thing for a good two months. That with the right environmental cues will cause your snake to be very hungry :)
My humidity is 55-70% in the cages at all times with fresh water and night time temperature drop. The ambiant goes from ~85-~73 and the heat tape (hot spot) goes from 93F - 78F.

Good Luck

Dave

[Linds]

Also try getting a small mouse and a small rat, both smaller than you would normally feed. When she's just finishing taking down the mouse she should still be in feed mode and try offering the rat.

[Solid Snake]

damn david 2 months without food!

[sapphire_moon]

Just try waiting till next feeding to offer it to her.......or offer her a smaller rat pup.......try the scenting thing, maybe she sees the rat and thinks it's to big to be a mouse......I'm going to try prana on small rats this coming week....so I'm crossing my fingers hoping she will take it.

[killaclown]

]
Its really easy to switch to rats if you got a good eater but just start small.

[mango]

She's a very good eater. She just doesn't seem to like the smell of a rat. She will smell the whole thing from head to but and sometimes nudge it with her nose to smell places she didn't smell before. Then she'll just sit in the corner and not do anything. I'm going to get some rat pups soon. It's been 5 days since she ate last and I'm going to wait her out for 2 weeks at first and see if I can get her to take. She's prowling big time and trying to get out which she's never done before and I'm hoping her hunger will over come her pickiness by then. Thanks for everything everyone. Your suggestions are a big help. :D

[stkkts]

When my switched over, it had been at least 3 weeks since her last feeding, she was extremely hungry. Also, make sure you are going with a small rat, perhaps you are offering something to big.


Solid snake, My BP went of eating for 6 months this past winter, She didnt even lose any weight. 2 months is nothing.

[sapphire_moon]

I know this is off topic.....mango: We got the little corn in.......came in great and was out checking things out in about 2 min within getting in her new enclosure....and already went to the top of the tank and curled up on the lip of it.....I would recommend him! Good luck getting Jega to eat rats!!