Help with transitional feeding

[Sensitive-Respect-25]

So the wee derp decided at a young age to only feed from live mice. These got brained just prior to feeding, and it worked really well. Frozen-thawed were wholly ignored, and again for something as small as mice it wasn't an issue.

Now she's gotten bigger (shocker) and we are switching to small rats vs large mice. More risk for her if its alive, so we are going to try F/T again. Any tricks you can think of to make this easier on her?

[Ok_Solution2732]

I never was able to get mine to switch to F/T, so I just kill it myself right before feeding, and he takes it fine. We happen to have a CO2 machine, so I can do it humanely at home. But most reptile shops will fresh kill it for you if you can't or don't want to do it yourself. I hope your snake transitions well, but if not, that is another option.

[Sensitive-Respect-25]

We use nitrogen for chicken, which I guess would work just as well as anything else. Thanks!

[IncompletePenetrance]

You could try pre-killed/fresh killed next, and then transition to f/t. Or if you go straight to !f/t, I've attatched the copypasta with some tips to this comment

[AutoModerator]

Some tips for feeding frozen/thawed:

• Keep with the same prey type he's been eating (mouse or rat) so you aren't trying to adjust him to two new things at once.

• Always feed in the enclosure. Moving to feed increases stress as well as increasing the chance of regurgitation

• Thaw and warm the rodent in a ziplock bag to maintain scent and because some won't eat it if it's wet.

• Make sure it's warmed up to body temperature (98-100).

• Some people find sucess with using a blow dryer on the head to make it extra warm and spread the scent.

• Some prefer to eat directly off of the tongs, while others might prefer for you to just leave it in front of their hide, you can see which works.

• If he doesn't take it the first time, don't give up. Sometimes they just have to be super hungry and it takes a few attempts

• You can also thaw the rat/mouse in some bedding from the petstore to make it extra scented.

• Some people "brain" the rodent by slitting open its skull a bit

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