rescue ball python

[ohh_kristina]

Tomorrow I am driving to the next county to pick up a rescue 7 year old female ball python. She is only on medium rats once "every few weeks". My male 3ft yearling ball python eats one large rat every 7 days. The current owner of the BP told me that she was "on the skinny side". I want to fatten her up, definately..but I don't want to overload her too soon, you know? So, I suppose I will start feeding her a medium rat every 7 days, and then after she's put on a few grams, I'll step it up to large rats. Does that sound okay? I don't want her to regurge or anything because the prey is too much, since she hasn't been fed a lot. I am taking her on Monday to get a fecal done.
Also, she is feeding live and I want to switch her to pre killed. I switched my yearling male to p/k with no problem, but I'm a little worried that because of the females age, she won't be as easy. Any tips?
Thanks! I will post pictures tomorrow when I get her.

[mark129er]

I wish you the best of luck with the rescue. I hope all goes well

[sapphire_moon]

Hmmmmmm tips....I'll try my best! Obviously wait the couple of week (or how ever long you usually use) for the new snake) then try it on the feeding scheduel of every 7 days.just try swinging a P/K in front of her and see what happens. If not try scenting, putting her in a small rubbermaid enclosure, braining, chicken broth....etc....etc....If she starts regurging either put her on a smaller prey item like a small rat, every 7days, and if she still regurges, try every 2 weeks....I hope this helped! I'm sure lots more people have more and better expierences with rescues than I do and I'm sure they will give you their ideas! Good luck!

[TheRedDragon]

I wish you the best of luck with your rescued BP, and good for you for taking her in.

[lilyskip]

good luck! most of the advice on switching to p/k has been posted somewhere here...see if you can find it in the archives. I'm really glad this bp is going to an owner who will be able to take care of it!