Feeding tips...

My import female isn't a fan of eating. She ate a few African rats for Ed Clark, but before I run off and drop $40 on a package of frozen African rats, I'd like to exhaust all tricks of getting her to take a domestic rat.

I tried live, I tried pre-killed, I tried really warm pre-killed, and I tried chicken broth on the head. Nothing. Any other ideas that have proven to work with finicky eaters?

yeah, treat it like a kid, if they dont want to eat what you have, dont feed them for another few days. my snake has done that before and i put him back in his cage, eventually got hungry enough where he didnt care if it was black,brown,live,frozen,thawed or even rodent in species, he just wanted to eat.

How big is your snake? What size food are you feeding?

She's 3 to 3 1/4 feet long, 1100 grams. I offered her small rats. They're the same girth as her mid-section, if not smaller.

Gerbils.

They will usually hit them immediately. Just be very careful (they bite back).

I have a male that wouldn't touch anything. He now eats p/k gerbils. Eventually I hope to get him on rats since gerbils are pricey but at least for now I found something he likes.

I wouldn't give it to her live...she's timid and I know it would bite her. Think she'd take a p/k one on the first shot?

I don't mind paying a bit more, as long as she's eating.

something you can try is to go to your petshop and ask for some of the old bedding from a gerbil cage and let your small rat sit in it for a couple hours before you try feeding her . sometimes the sent from the gerbils is enough to get a feeding response .

Gerbils huh? Here in California we are not allowed to own them.

Probably because if they escaped, they'd have a good chance of survival and would upset native species. Kind of like how snakes are illegal in Hawaii as there are no native species of snake and escaped ones could thrive.

I tried a stunned gerbil. She sniffed it then hid her head. I put it out of its misery and left it in there for a bit with a black blanket over the enclosure. An hour later, it was still there and she had crammed herself into the corner on the cool side to get as far away from it as possible. So I tossed it...$10 in the trash. Is there anything else I should try or should I just order the African rats?