Feeding F/T, how long to leave it?

[bcr229]

We have a 48" long male BP that we're converting over to f/t large rats. He's a rescue, long history of feeding issues there (mainly his prior owners didn't feed regularly, and the live rats they did feed tore him up and scratched one eye, while he was blind in the other from retained eyecaps).

Long story short, after a few weeks in the proper environment he shed out several times, the eyecaps are gone, and he has vision back in both eyes now. Unfortunately he constantly refused f/t and would only eat live since that's what he was used to, but only rat pups or smalls which aren't nearly enough to sustain him - he would get very defensive hide his head from the live medium or large rats when they got close.

Yesterday evening we defrosted a large rat and put it in his tank, then left him with it overnight. I'd planned on removing it this morning when I woke up, but he ate it right at the 12-hour mark - I actually walked in to get it right as the tail was going down the hatch!

So, how long is too long to leave f/t available? I thought a few hours was plenty before it would start to go bad, but obviously the BP thought it was edible 12 hours after defrosting.