So, my little girl (about 6 months, 170g) is never very good at coiling her food... I feed her F/T rat pups every 5 days and she's never refused a meal, but more often than not she has a heavy coil on top of her little neck by the time she starts eating. Usually she figures out that isn't going to work by the time she gets halfway down the rat and pulls her head out from under herself (without dropping the rat) but apparently not tonight

Tonight when she coiled her rat she really balled up around it, and by the time she got to the hind legs she seemed stuck. I looked away for a minute and when I looked back she looked like she was done, except there was a slimy furry thing amongst her coils :/ Then she stretched out, dragged her slimy rat through her mulch and ate it (again).

Her ball constriction technique. She may have eaten it sideways the first time, I couldn't tell.


Take 2 (I brushed off the mulch...)


Anyway, she's my first and only snake, so I'm wondering if this is something I should be concerned about? or if this is just something snakes do? Should I treat it like a regurge? She ate the rat just fine the second time, and now she's hanging out in one of her hides. But I'm going to keep a close eye on her for the next few days


Setup: 36"x18"x18" Exo-Terra glass terrarium, covered on sides, top 90% covered with foil. Hot hide 88-90, cool hide 78-80, ambient 80-85. UTH on hot side and red heat lamps to maintain ambient temps, digital probe thermometers in the hides and infrared temp gun. Cypress mulch, humidity at 60% now since she's going into shed, also have some damp moss in the cool hide.