feeding help

[jezza11]

Hey all, Before anyone says anything i have searched.

I have a stimson she eats to hopper mice a week i am trying to get her to eat fuzzy rats, there a lil bigger but she wont go near them at all, I need to get her onto rats as i cant find mice...and yes there frozen as well as the mice.

 

[mike_k]

I had same issue and dipped the nose of the rat in chicken blood and that worked for me. But there really are tons of different ways posted on the site, I can't imagine u came up with nothing?

 

[Jen]

Try searching for 'scenting' in the search function, there will be plenty of info for you there.

 

[MSD Reptiles]

I had this issue... the first few she took by scenting them with a pinkie mouse. I tried a third time without scenting and still was unsuccessful. Buying PMs soley for the purpose of scenting was starting to get a bit much... She hadnt ate for a month and a half, although i would try weekly with an unscented rat. Today she finally took it... just created a split behind its head and it did the trick.

 

[jezza11]

i have tried all this above with no luck. i will let her starve for 2 weeks and go from there tho

 

[gosia]

If scenting doesn't work you might have to try braining. (Now thats something I hope I never have to do )

 

[dangles]

i have tried all this above with no luck. i will let her starve for 2 weeks and go from there tho

2 weeks is hardly starving a python. Ive had 2 months+ when switching mice to rats. As long as they have good conditioning a month or 2 without food wont hurt

 

[jezza11]

dangles how do you do it

 

[saximus]

Like it was already stated search for "scenting". Basically you just defrost a rat and mouse together and rub them together so the mouse scent gets on the rats

I just realised you said you tried scenting. Try really rubbing them together. My bredli was a bitch to switch over. Unless I spent like 30 seconds rubbing them together to make sure the ray was really strongly scented he wouldn't take them

 

[Ewan]

Some can be a pain to switch over to rats and once it has your stimi will grow like a weed. As you have tried the scenting options try this.

Offer your stimi a small mouse. Once it has finished the mouse offer the rat. This technique works as the snake is in a feed response mode following the initial prey item and will often strike at anything that comes close. This has worked numerous times for me. If it won't accept the rat on the first attemp don't be alarmed. Sometimes these things take time and patience. Sometimes if you are patient enough you can even place the head of the second prey item in the open mouth of the snake as the first prey item is consumed.

Good luck.

Ewan.

 

[Bluetongue1]

In addition to what Ewan suggested, you can try sowing the rat to the mouse with cotton thread and a needle – they go in as one unit then.

I do not know what size you snake is but I would be tempted to have it comfortably eating adult mice before I dropped back to two smaller animals at once. Up to you…

Blue.