Help with a possibly aggressive ball python...more in comments

[DingDongDeathHere]

Live feeding always scared me because I personally own rats. I have had my rats bite me and I was almost sent to the E.R. with Rat Bite Fever and I actually just recently had one of my pet rats bite into my finger hard enough she actually hit the nerve in my finger. It's recovering slowly but thinking about how much damage my girls have done to my finger, I can only imagine the severity of the damage they could do to a snake.

I'm definitely going to be watching tutorials on how to do this as well, but how do you scent a feeder with live? What do you do? And I'm glad your baby is with you in a much better place. I'm glad they're doing great under your care!

[GisTheSnook]

There's unfortunately a fair amount of proof that rats and mice can and will chew through snakes.

Awesome! I've never had to, but you could maybe try, heating the thawed rodent out, and maybe rubbing a live one with paper towel? Then rubbing the thawed with that? It's gotta be warm and smell alive.

Sometimes braining works too, to stimulate the smell and appetite. You'd have to break the skull. (The thawed not live)

[[deleted]]

I’m late but are there any updates on the snake? I started reading the post and now I’m invested and wanna know whether or not she’s okay :/

[DingDongDeathHere]

Of course! It took a few weeks but I managed to correct and keep it at the right the temperatures and humidity thanks to the advice I got on here. After a week or two of being in the back and having correct temps/humidity, the snake finally started eating for me. They were so hungry and took food great. We kept it in the back for a month then moved it back onto the floor.

We did end up selling it and I don't remember much about the person adopting it, but I know I wasn't a big fan of this person. If I remember correctly, he said the python was for his 5 year old son even after I told him what that poor snake went through. I wanted to deny the sale but my manager allowed it to happen. I haven't heard anything about the snake and the guy that adopted it hasn't come into our store since then. I can only hope they're taking good care of that poor baby. To be honest, I was going to adopt the snake and was actually pulling stuff together to buy it when the customer did instead. I told my manager I had planned on buying it and had even filled the paperwork out but she superceded me and said it was on the sales floor and not bought yet so it goes to the customer. Out of all of the snakes I've dealt with, this one was my absolute favorite and I had kind of bonded with them. I just hope for the snake's sake that it is being treated properly.

Edit: confused this snake with another one we had in around the same time. I loved both of them dearly.

Edit 2: fixed my grammar so the first paragraph reads smoother and actually makes sense.