Is there a certain amount of mucus used while eating?

[hops523]

Hows it going everyone? Today was feeding day for my younger BPs, who I feed on a 5 day schedule, sometimes a couple times a week if the rats smaller than they should be eating. Up until about a week ago one of my balls hadnt missed a meal. The last feeding day I offered in a f/t rat pup(which is what I usually offer), he struck, and got a weird constriction on the rat. He ended up not eating it, so I took the rat out.

Today he did somewhat of the same thing, got a strange constriction on the rat. When he wrapped around the rat his mouth was biting the tail, not the head, and he didnt constrict it all the way. He's normally a skittish BP, so most of the time I just leave him alone and dont watch when he eats. When I went to check on him, he was back in his hide and the rat was on the other side of the tub. As I was taking the rat out, I noticed a bit of clear slime around the tail, and rear end of the rat. Im thinking he started to eat the rat at his rear end, and just stopped.

I checked out around my BPs mouth, didnt see any mucus, no wheezing or weird noise, he's been acting very normal, etc. The only time his temps have been low was after I built a rack, and was trying to figure out the best place to put the probe. At that time, the lowest temp was 86 on his hot spot. But that was a very short period of time.

So back to my original question, is this something I should take him to the vet over, or is there usually an amount of mucus thats used by BPs while eating?
Thank you

[Adam Chandler]

If there is no excess mucus/saliva when your BP is not eating I don't see any reason to take him to the vet. If he was trying to eat the rat and stopped then yes there will be saliva on it. BP have very slippery saliva, they need to in order to sallow things whole. As long as your BP has water readily available he should have no danger of getting dehydrated by losing some saliva on failed attempts of eating.

I'd recommend just trying a feeding again next week.

[hops523]

Thanks for the reassurance. I couldnt understand what exactly was going on. Yep, always have clean water available. Thanks again