My snakes are live eaters

I have a ball python i got from a friend that is over 3 years old and its always ate live. I tried to give a a fresh kill rat and no dice, it was still warm even. I had no idea it could be smart enough to know if its dead or not. I assumed it wasn't a picky eater cause it didnt seem to mind male or female rats or mice live. Now what do I do with a frozen rat(I froze ti after)? put it on a coworkers car?


My corn snake is 4 months old is a live feeder I was told but i tried the frozen pinkies with no success. I got 2 live pinkies the next day and put the snake in a small paper bag with them and he ate them fast.

Thank god I live a short enough distance away from twin city reptile to get live babies .

Well I certainly believe in feeding frozen/thawed, but feeding live is better than feeding nothing.

What I do to heat mine up is putting the mice in a cup. I turn on my tap water until it's steaming and then I fill up the cup. I take tongs to kind of "soften" the mice and then dump the water out. Then I'll just take tongs, pick up the mice, and offer it to my scaly kids. Never had a problem with it.

My roommate also does this same thing with her ball python who was originally eating live when she got her...no problem.

Robbie might have some good tips for getting the BP to eat FT. Good luck!

I switch all the balls at my shop over to f/t before I offer them for sale. With stubborn ones, I start with fresh killed. Good feeders will almost always take them. The transition to thawed isn't nearly as difficult after that, but it's nice to have a clean-up animal ready just in case.

I have found with corn snakes, it is usually just a matter of time for the picky feeder "live only" babies to switch to frozen / thawed. I have never had any that didn't switch by five months of age. I only let them have live meals every two weeks, and that gives me a chance to offer F/T once or twice between those live meals. I thaw the F/T pinkies in hot water (or sometimes hot tuna juice), brain them and leave them overnight with the snake. I have found that it also helps to feed them in tiny containers. Tupperware makes 2 ounce little green lidded containers, which are a quarter of the size of your typical deli cup, and for some reason feeding them in these tiny containers really seems to improve my feeding results for the picky ones.

Ball pythons can be tricky to transition to frozen / thawed, but I found a technique that worked great for two of my adult balls who had never wanted anything to do with frozen / thawed. I had purchased some F/T baby chicks from Rodentpro.com for my big corn snakes. Just out of curiosity, I decided to offer one of them to my ball python, and she ate it very readily.... no tongs or teasing required. Then I tried it on my other adult, and he also gobbled up a F/T chick right away. I gave them those for their next couple of meals as well. Since baby chicks aren't considered to be complete nutrition for ball pythons, I knew I still needed to give them rats. So, I then attempted giving them F/T rats again, and they totally ate them and have eaten F/T rats just fine ever since. I also tried this technique on a third sub-adult ball python, and she never did go for it... but two out of three's not bad. It might be worth a try.

Good luck!

Nanci said:

Robbie might have some good tips for getting the BP to eat FT. Good luck!

Click to expand...

2 of my BP's switched to f/t without an issue, and 2 were on f/t before. I'm still trying to get the 2 babies on f/t, but they prefer live African Soft Fur rats. So... I don't really have any good tips as far as the BP's go.

It looks like wendhend has some good tips and suggestions, though!

my baby corn eats what i give it, the pet store today didnt have frozen pinkies so i got a live one, when the other store a while back didnt have live only frozen. she isnt a very picky eater, she smells it and swallows it down alive or dead. though the last pinky i got her was huge, i didnt think she would be able to eat it, but she was without much of a problem.

Shmoges said:

I have a ball python i got from a friend that is over 3 years old and its always ate live. I tried to give a a fresh kill rat and no dice, it was still warm even. I had no idea it could be smart enough to know if its dead or not. I assumed it wasn't a picky eater cause it didnt seem to mind male or female rats or mice live. Now what do I do with a frozen rat(I froze ti after)? put it on a coworkers car?


My corn snake is 4 months old is a live feeder I was told but i tried the frozen pinkies with no success. I got 2 live pinkies the next day and put the snake in a small paper bag with them and he ate them fast.

Thank god I live a short enough distance away from twin city reptile to get live babies .

Click to expand...

Welcome to CS.com.. Where did you get your corn from? TCR? Leaping Lizards? or a local breeder? I wonder if you have a Mark Schmidtke snake.. hmm.

Your ball python, how often are you feeding it??
I would hold on that Frozen rat.. no need to toss it out right away. You can get your ball python to take it but it takes time and you have to do the "Dance". Also, make sure the rat is about 100 degrees. yep, they are picky and want a good heated rodent. Another thing you can do to is starve your snake a bit and get it good and hungry.

I have a 09 ball python female that wouldnt take nothing but live from me.. well i starved her a few weeks and bam she took a F/T mouse from me. I was pretty happy.

Now your corn.. If you corn is eating live for you, it will take f/t pinks. Trust me on this. I have a whole slew of new borns that never saw a live mouse yet. What I recommend is getting a small deli container, just go to Cub and Rainbow and ask for one. It may cost you a few pennies but its well worth it.

Now what you need to do is just take the f/t pink and place it in the container and then place your snake in there. Leave it alone for a few minutes to an hour or 2. It should the pink.
I use the trick on the babies I still have left from this year. They get to riled up and I have to put them in a container to eat and typically the mouse is gone by the time I am feeding everyone.

I had that problem with my bp and like people have said before I withheld food for about 3 weeks and from then on he's done great. Another thing we found that works with him is that we put him in a container close it up with just him and the mouse turn off the lights and leave him be for a while. He will just not eat it in front of us even though he would when we fed live.

I am with a lot of the above. Very hot meals, dry, and doing the zombie dance with tongs will usually get them off live and atleast onto fresh killed.... then eventually onto F/T.

None of my snakes get live.... even if they were eating live or fresh killed when I got them. Fresh killed isnt too bad but it can be a pain in the butt when you have a huge feeding day.... I dont really like to sit and kill 70 mice at a time LOL I am already going to a shrink..... I dont tell him about my 'killing days" LOL

good info, thanks.

Shmoges said:

I have a ball python i got from a friend that is over 3 years old and its always ate live. I tried to give a a fresh kill rat and no dice, it was still warm even. I had no idea it could be smart enough to know if its dead or not.

Click to expand...

My ball python definitely can tell the difference between f/t and live and I can tell by the way she strikes. If it's f/t, she'll wrap one coil of her neck around it. If it's live, she coils up most of her body around it.

She sometimes drops the live ones after she's killed them and I have to pick it back up and offer it to her. F/t, she eats straight away.

I got an older ball python that was fed live her whole life. She switched to f/t pretty well, but I had to do what others have already suggested - make sure it is very warm and wiggle it with tongs. The first time she let go of it, so I did it again and wiggled it a little more once she had it. She "killed" it and ate it just fine. She hasn't had a problem since - though she still treats them like they're alive and "kills" them before eating. Also if the rat is too cold she'll drop it, or aim for my warmer hand instead by mistake.

Well I talked to someone at twin city reptile today and they asked me the age of the snake. I said I think at liest 3 years and she said it sounds like it may be reaching sexual maturity and may have other things on its mind than food and may not eat for a couple months!! I guess I will wait another week and try a fresh kill i stick in the freezer.

PS a friend of mine is taking the live rat i have as a pet lol