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[sweetestbugg]

My KSB is 8 years old. She has never had f/t feed she has always had live. What is the best way to switch her over?

[stephanbakir]

Have you tried F/T? I swapped a pair of ksb to ft and didn't need to do anything, they just ate em.

[Corey209]

Attempt to feed if they don't take, wait a week and try again. Hunger will over come them being picky.

[Gravelanche]

simple tips, when you buy the frozen ask for a bit of the mouse bedding and put it in a few minutes before you feed, the smell will get them hunting. make sure the animal is nice and warm, use warm water to warm it right through, and use tonges to make the mouse dance a little, if he doesnt strike touch the mouse to its head and it may strike as a defence instead, once he does he will realize its food and most likely take it.

if that doesnt work you have some more in depth research to do. but basically try and make that frozen one SEEM as alive as you can

[KORBIN5895]

Personally I would heat it up and just drop it in at night. Tong feeding really gets annoying.

[drewkore]

Yeah, definitely try what Korbin said before you go through any elaborate "tricks". It may be as simple as dropping a dead mouse in the cage.

[sweetestbugg]

The thing is my bro had a corn snake that was f/t and I tried with her but she didn't want anything to do with it! I have tried the tong method once and she showed no interest? Is there ever a case where they just flat out refuse to switch over?

[drewkore]

Yes. At 8 years old she could be a challenge. If you have already tried without success I would attempt fresh kill and go from there.

[Chu'Wuti]

There are many tricks for encouraging a snake to switch from live to F/T. I have tried many of them; some were successful with some snakes and not others.

Some people have recommended soaking the prey item in chicken broth (salt-free) after thawing. When I tried that, it didn't work, but that doesn't mean it won't; it just wasn't a success with the particular snake I tried it on.

Using a scalpel or very sharp knife to cut open the cranium and expose some brain matter is another trick. I've used that one successfully.

With my most stubborn snake, a breeder told me to "roll it in rat poop!" It sounded disgusting, but I had been trying unsuccessfully to switch that python to F/T for five months. I had even tried letting live rats crawl on the F/T one without any luck. So I put the F/T prey item on used rat bedding with lots of poop in it (the breeder was kind enough to give me a big handful of poop!). That did the trick!

I've used that trick a couple of times since and it has worked every time.

Once I had done that a couple of times, I quit doing it and offered just a warm thawed prey item, and there was no hesitation, so it doesn't seem to be necessary for very long--just enough to get them through the transition.

Good luck!