It's the little victories that count!

It's life's little victories that count. They are the ones you don't expect to see and you never take them for granted. Today, I was lucky enough to witness TWO little victories!

To give you some background: I purchased Charlotte at the NARBC in Arlington back in August.

Several days after her arrival, I tried to feed her a frozen/thawed rat because just a few weeks before, I bulk ordered a bunch of rat fuzzies an rat pups in the hopes that she would eat them along with the normal ball python (she was already a frozen/thawed rat eater). However, much to my dismay, she refused the frozen/thawed rats. So I tried some live rats. I don't generally feed live because I always worry the snakes will get injured, but I figure a little rat fuzzy wouldn't hurt her. So I plopped that into her cage and...nothing. Frustrated, I left it in with her over night and still she hadn't eaten the rat!

So, a few weeks go by and I decide that she's lost too much weight than I feel comfortable with so I offered her a frozen/thawed hopper mouse that I feed my corn snake. Well, she gobbled that up without any hesitation. So I decided to just feed her mice because I knew she would eat them. Occasionally, I would feed her a smaller mouse followed by a small rat and she would constantly snub her nose up at the rat.

Earlier this month, I attended Repticon in Dallas/Ennis with a friend of mine. I went ahead and purchased adult mice and jumbo mice, knowing that Charlotte would quickly outgrow the weaned mice I was feeding her. So I brought them home and stuffed them in my freezer with all the other rodents. That week, I had picked up a live rat for my male, Jax (who you'll be hearing about a little later). He decided he didn't want it so I just tossed it in the tub with Charlotte for a little bit while I figured out what to do with it. I heard a "THUNK" and turned to see the rat bit, coiled, and near death. I was shocked! My little mouser was eating a rat fuzzy. Thinking it was just a fluke, I went ahead and bought her another rat fuzzy last week. She ate that one too. So I decided, today, to see if she would eat a frozen/thawed rat. Sure enough, she gobbled down her rat pup with no problems. So now I have a spider ball python who finally eats rats and a freezer full of mice that are even too big for my corn snakes. Go figure, right?

This brings me to my second little victory. Jax is a lesser ball python that I got the last weekend in September.

I was told by the breeder that he was eating live rats. It was his first feeding with me and I decided to offer him a frozen/thawed rat because again, I have a freezer full of them. No luck. I tried again the next week and even left the rats in his cage. No luck. So I caved and bought him a live rat weanling (or a wiener rat...yes, it's funny). He seemed scared of the rat. He wouldn't strike it and balled up whenever it would come close to him. So I removed it and tried a smaller rat that didn't move quite so much. He ate that one fine! I tried to offer him a frozen/thawed one to supplement since the fuzzy rat was a little small, but he didn't go for it. So the next week, I tried another wiener rat since he is far too big for fuzzy rats. Well, he decided he needed a bigger meal or something because he ate it no problem.

Well, I gave him another live wiener rat last week and this week I thought I would try to feed him frozen again. Lo and behold, he ate the frozen/thawed rat! It took a little bit of convincing, but he did eat it! That means I have two who are finally on frozen rats and I will have two new snakes to help me clean out my freezer!

Having Charlotte and Jax eat frozen/thawed for me today has literally made my weekend. To the people who don't like snakes or are squeamish about feeding snakes, you may not find this amusing at all. But to me, it's one of those small victories that makes me very happy!