I have had my Ball Python Kane for the past 4 years. He was a gift to me from my parents. I have heard tales of BP's being finicky eaters but Kane was actually a voracious snake. He never turned down food. We have always fed him live food since he was a baby however I wanted to feed him prekilled for his safety. But he would have none of that. Around december I tried to feed him a pre-killed and he wouldn't take it. I tried soaking it in chicken broth and he still wouldn't take it. I broke the skull open exposing the brains and he wouldn't take it. I figured he wasn't hungry. I try a couple weeks later and he still wouldn't have it. I figured he didn't recognize prekilled as food so I bought him a live rat. He wouldn't eat that. No worries since I heard snakes can go a month or so between feedings. Now fast forward 7 months later along with several other failed attempts at feeding him live food. I was really starting to get worried about him. I remembered reading somewhere that BP's don't recognize rats as food because they are not native to their region. Instead they recognize gerbils as food and that if you have a finicky snake you should get some gerbil bedding to roll the rat around in to disguise the scent as that of a gerbil. Today we stopped over at Jack's Aquarium and Pets and I decided what the hey it is worth a shot. I picked up a pre-killed rodent and asked the lady at the register the odd request of if I could have some of their gerbil bedding. She curiously inquired why and I told her. She gave me a bag full of their used gerbil bedding. I took the rat and stuffed it in the bag with the litter and left in their for about 8 hours, thawed it out and fed it to my snake. He was hiding in his hidy box as I dangled the dead rat by the hole with his tail when WHACK! He attacked and coiled around it! He just finished swallowing it and moved back to his hidy hole leaving me to be very relieved. In a way I killed 2 birds with one stone. I managed to get my snake to feed after a 7month fast plus I managed to get him to eat pre-killed for the first time in his life! Today has been a great day.
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Congrats it must have been scary while he wasn't eating, strange how such things can trigger instinctive reactions. I've always wanted to have a snake and feed is snake sausi or whatever because my parents freak about the rodent thing (both live and dead in the freezer), but I am still trying to figure out how exactly you get a snake to eat lumps insted of animals, lol. I should look into this I think 
'course, first I'd like to move my frog onto frog nibbles, one fight at a time I guess.
'course, first I'd like to move my frog onto frog nibbles, one fight at a time I guess.