I'm pretty new to royal/ball pythons. I've only had mine since last October. He(or She, wasn't sexed) eats f/t like a champ. Usually I have to wiggle the rat in front of him to get him to strike it. This last time however, no what I did, no strike, but he still seemed extremely interested in it. I eventually just laid the rat next to him on the floor and let him explore it. He smelled it a little bit, crawled on it and then decided it was time to start swallowing the rat. No strike or anything. Has this happened to anyone else? I'm not really worried, since he ate, more just curious.