confused snake & owner

[jharris08]

granted this is my first rodeo with a clutch of juvenile bp's , but I have kept pythons for 4 yrs now and haven't experienced this, so im a little confused and hope someone can help.

My clutch hatched 6/14/14 and all are on f/t rat pups, getting ready to move up to rat weanlings. Everything was going well until the last few weeks. I've got a normal who for the last 4 or 5 feedings has struck and constricted the rat immediately, but then it searches and searches and acts like it can not find the head of the rat, and doesn't even try to swallow the rat from either end. After 2 times of finding the spoiled rat in the tub the next day, the next feeding I actually had to hold the rat up to the snakes mouth and it started to eat it. I did this 2 times just to get the snake to eat, but now last nights feeding, it didn't work.

Anyone know a possibility for why the snake cant find a starting point to eat and just leaves the rat all night? all other 4 snakes are doing great, so don't know if its something genetic or what's going on.

[CptJack]

My normal, for the first several months I had him, would only eat like this - no striking and constricting and would only take the animal if it was pressed nose to nose with him, basically, and he skipped a lot.

What ultimately fixed the problem for me was either time or getting the rat warmer - a lot warmer, though obviously not hot enough to burn the snake. He's just a prissy eater and I think the rodent was cooling off too much while being constricted and turning him off it (even though my other snakes were fine with it). Dipping the head in extra hot water (like boiling) for a second (in and out) so it was warmer than the rest of the rodent also seemed to help him.