weird feeding response!

[Ginevive]

I was feeding Bela a f/t rat. She struck at it twice, but they were really fast strikes, almost like a venomous snake striking to venomize the prey for later consumption after it dies. Then about half a minute after this, she slides her mouth around the rat's head, slowly mind you, and appears to be about to swallow. But then she coils around it like she thinks it's still alive and needs to be killed. Then she uncoils and searches for a good angle to swallow the rat..
Finally she did eat the rat, but as a grand finale of idiocy, she eats it backward. :?
Luckily it was just a small rat; if it were bigger, I'd not let her eat it backward, cuz the claws ca scratch while going down and it's generally dangerous. But, what an entertaining feeding this was!

[Marla]

Sounds like she was playing with her food! Generally those fast strikes are defensive strikes, but she ought to know by now that a dead rat isn't much of a threat. I wonder if something had spooked her? At least she ended up eating the darn thing.

[Ginevive]

Maybe I just got her at a bad moment and startled her. I am just glad she ended up eating finally.

[led4urhead]

Kids playing with their darn food ... someday they'll learn

[UberAlice]

Roo eats her food backwards (or tries to) sometimes. She did this once for a half an hour, then finally managed to remember head goes in first.

[led4urhead]

The only time any of my guys/girl did something screwy was when Andy tried to eat the rat sideways. Now that was funny

[Ginevive]

She does that too! I think that she's my weirdest feeding snake. Never refuses, but she always does something to make me laugh hysterically. Last night my boyfriend and I watched in hysterics as she tried to eat the thing sideways, then butt-first, but she finally settled on eating it headfirst. Maybe she's learnin?

[blank]

On Friday I fed my two baby balls and one of them was doing something a similar strike. He kept striking at it, but not trying to hit it. Like he was just trying to scare the little mouse before actually eating him. I didn't know balls could be bullies? Although it was a black mouse instead of a white mouse. Maybe he's a racist snake? HAHA. He didn't try eating it backwards though like yours.

Later on,
Ford

[Ginevive]

I have read that some Bps actually have a preference of certain colors in the mice/rats they eat. My snakes do not care if the rat is white, gray, black, piebald, skewbald, or even tie-dyed (ok, that,s a bit of an exaggeration) they will eat any-colored rat.
The quick strikes, as was mentioned above, are more for defense than for getting prey. Sounds like your snake may be afraid of the mouse. I'd whack it to stun/kill it before feeding again. I had a young Bp awhile ago who was afraid to eat and actually stop-ed eating for months because the person I got him from was feeding live, and the mouse bit the snake's nose.

[UberAlice]

In the wild there are no albino mice, so some BPs may not acknowledge them as a prey item, or think they're sick. Roo refused time and time again to take a f/t albino, but as soon as I offered a colored mouse she struck right at it and ate it down. To this day, I don't offer albino/white mice because it's just a waste of money knowing that she won't eat it.