• Posted 12/19/2024.
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    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
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    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Switching from mice to rats

B

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Did a search, but all that I came up with was threads on switching from live to f/t, which isn't my issue, obviously. :)

My male was on hoppers, but went largely inactive for a while and then finally shed--by the time I saw him on a regular basis again, a hopper was only about half as thick as his body (growth spurt, heh). And that won't do at all! He refuses to eat more than one mouse at a time, too, despite still acting hungry after eating his one hopper and refusing the second. So no doubling up for me.

So I ordered up some Small rats, which was the size recommended to me on herpers on LJ. It seems about the right girth for him, dead rats are obviously a bit soft and tend to squish flat slightly and look wider than they are, but the slightest pressure from my finger makes them look about right. I've got all my housemates to compare and see if it looks right to them too, and they say it does.

The problem is that my boy just will not bite the things! His last single-hopper meal was 11-16, but he remained active and food-seeking afterwards. Then the rats came in, and the first attempt was Saturday. I thawed the rat covered in some hoppers to scent it a bit, then put Rorschach in his poptart box with it and left them to it for about 45 minutes. No go. Google told me it was alright to refreeze once, and the extra stink might help the second time succeed. So I tried again tonight--probably should have waited longer, but I was afraid the rat was getting ripe despite being in the freezer. Warmed it up with the ziploc bag + hot water trick, and he seemed extremely interested (sticking his head out of his hide while it got ready, poking and sniffing it when he was put with it). But no go.

I now have 14 Small rats left. The biggest box for that size was 15, ordering more than one box gets expensive quick, you know how it goes. :) Should be enough to last him months (14 weeks is a lot), if only he'll eat them.

So...suggestions? I'd rather leave gruesome things like bleeding or braining as a last resort, I'm not that hardcore and experienced yet that I could do that without getting sick. ;) How long should I wait before the next attempt? How long can he safely go before I should give in and give him a couple of the remaining mice so he'll have SOME nourishment?

Temps are 80 on one end, 90-95-100 depending on what portion of the heated area I check, he'll lay on different spots as it suits him. Humidity 50-60%, I keep a towel over the tank as it's getting a bit dry with the dead of winter coming on. Still pretty and shiny from the first shed he had with me (11/5), no retained eyecaps, no fluid from the mouth, no signs of bad health whatsoever.

We did have an incident last Thursday where our central heater got borked and even with his own heater going, the end of the tank where he was sleeping got knocked down to 70 for an unknown portion of the night and some of the morning. I got it back up right quick though, and our heater was working again by noon. It's been a fairly steady 76-78 air temperature in the house ever since.

He's up off the floor, away from drafts. Though I did just see a thread where someone said that moving a tank across the room can cause them to go off feed for a bit, and that's kinda what I had to do on Thursday, heh. Anyone else find that to be the case?

I've had him since August, but I'm still a total newbie sometimes. :)
 
Have you tried offering it to him by danging the rat by its tail from tongs/tweezers/pliers? I offer food to all my snakes this way. If he won't take food like that, all you can do is keep trying. Try leaving it in his cage overnight, not in the box. Try putting it in his hide overnight.

Ball pythons can try your patience, that's for sure. If your BP is fat, he can go for a long period of time w/o eating. They store fat really well and some of them like to fast for awhile. Seven months was the longest I've had a ball not eat. That snake shed twice and poo'd twice in that 7 months.

I wouldn't worry just yet unless your ball is losing weight. Is his body thick and round or is his backbone sticking up like he is tented? That would be an indicator he is losing weight.
 
Karen Hulvey said:
I wouldn't worry just yet unless your ball is losing weight. Is his body thick and round or is his backbone sticking up like he is tented? That would be an indicator he is losing weight.
Click to expand...

His backbone IS sticking up, but only a little bit. :bawling: I'm not surprised though, I was trying to get him on two hoppers a meal for a while (since 10/20) before I was able to get the rats.

I tried to use the tongs, but the rats are just too big and heavy. I can't dangle them properly, but I can wiggle them on the floor of a feeding box pretty well. I got frustrated and I guess I didn't try that long enough, I thought maybe it'd just stress him more.

How long do you think I should wait before trying again? I may use your suggestion of leaving it in the tank overnight at that time, though it'll probably stink up my room I don't care as long as he eats. :(
 
When is comes to feeding preferences every ball python is definately an individual, especially young ones.
It is entirely possible thet you'll never convince him to eat one of the rats at this point. Balls are extremely stubborn when they have a feeding preference.
I have 3 females I hatched in 2003 and not only will they absolutely not accept a rat, they also won't accept dead mice. Live mice only, all three of them. At the same time I have some three month olds already taking rat pups. It's highly variable.
Usually at some point along the way they'll finally take a rat, so I do offer them periodically, but until that time comes they just won't take it no matter what you do.

All you can do is offer a rat every few days, but if it becomes apparent that he isn't going to switch right now then you can always increase the feeding schedule instead of increasing the number of mice per feeding. Feed him twice a week, or even every three days if necessary if all you can get him to eat are smaller mice.

One trick you might try is to super heat the rats head. Thaw the rat then hold the forehead against a light bulb for 20 seconds or so. The temp of that spot will get up to 120 or so fairly easily. I have seen this result in a very good response from stubborn feeders.
But if it's the fact that it's a rat that is his problem, then it won't make any difference, but it's worth trying.
 
Clay Davenport said:
All you can do is offer a rat every few days, but if it becomes apparent that he isn't going to switch right now then you can always increase the feeding schedule instead of increasing the number of mice per feeding. Feed him twice a week, or even every three days if necessary if all you can get him to eat are smaller mice.
Click to expand...

I guess this is what I'll have to do, it seems like it will be less healthy for him but it's better than nothing. At least until I can try to get him a little fatter. :) He's not too bad right now, there's only enough backbone ridge to just barely be noticeable.

I'm thawing two hopper mice today to try and offer him tonight. I would normally wait longer, but I have to go to my parent's house from Wednesday evening (too early to try and feed him on Wed.) until Saturday morning for the holiday. So I'll give him the chance for some meaty protein today, since he seemed very active last night (apparently the smell of the rat had him going for hours after the failed attempt, he just didn't want to bite it yet?) and will probably inhale at least one of these mice readily. Then I'll start thawing a rat on Saturday or Sunday, and leave it in his tank overnight. I am starting to suspect that he just needs waaaay more time with the body to finally convince himself that it's food. :)

About the overnight thing...I know feeding on paper towels unsupervised is a bad idea because there's a slight risk that the towel will get eaten too. But I don't want to just leave a dead animal on his reptile carpet, especially because I won't be able to change the carpet for a couple days without disturbing him after he's eaten (if he does). Do you think it would work to put the rat inside a poptart box on its side? I'd have to take out the water bowl to have room, but if it's only overnight that might not be too bad.

Should the rat be left near the cooler end or the warmer end? Warmer end would keep it visible to his heat senses, but I can only imagine the SMELL in my room after a possible entire night of that. :ack2:
 
Update: I put a poptart box with two hoppers in it in his tank, and he ate both! :eatpointe

I think maybe I will do this again on the next feeding day, to get his weight back up. He already looks so much fatter and happier, and once he's nice and round again I will commence trying to switch to rats again. :)
 
Glad to know that he's eating. You can probably feed him large mice if the hoppers are too small for him. I've used paper plates to leave a F/T item in a cage but (as you already know :) ) a pop tart box or even a cereal box works well too.
 
Going from hopper mice to small rats is a BIG change for him....maybe try something more in-between sizes to get him used to the rats, like rat pups? Or, as Karen said, adult mice would work well also. The rat pups would at least help him get used to the rat scent though too. He may be intimidated by the combination of the much larger size, and the new scent. Just a thought...at least you've gotten a meal into him for now....but I think that's the way I would try to do it. :)
 
If I had a local place to get frozen rodents, I would definitely pick up a couple rat pups to make the transition easier. But as it is, ordering is my only option, and the shipping gets expensive for a college student to be making another order so soon after the Small rats. :( He's fat enough for them, I just have to get him to realize it, heh. :eatpointe

I'm hoping it was mainly the stress of the couple temp fluctuations and the tank being moved that had him still too anxious, plus I was not using this new rodent-in-box-in-tank trick that's gotten him to eat two mice for the first time ever, so he must like it a lot. :) I'm just going to have to hope that eating two mice at once for a while will get him used to larger amounts of food, or at least get him fat enough that we can play the "I'm only offering you rats this two-weeks/month, learn to like it" game. :hehe:

I've got enough hoppers to have him on meals of two for quite a few weeks to come if I have to. I'm so relieved!
 
heh

if i'm wrong someone correct me, but don't frozen rodents keep a long time? i have heard claims of up to two years. So if the rats don't work out soon, you can always save them for when you ahve the time to dedicate to converting him. i think the pups are a good idea, maybe buy thise guys instead of/with your next supply of hoppers, and make sure to get the smells mixed like you did before. if you aren't too squemish, i like to squeeze the little guys before feeding so that their nose bleeds a little, seems to prime the "i'm not that hungry" feeders up a bit more, or better yet, thaw a hopper and a rat, and bleed the mouse onto the rat-tried it with my corn snake and he seemed to like that. I haven't had too many problems feeding my BP though, so haven't tried it on him... good luck with whatever you end up doing!
 
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