BP soaking a mouse?

[saelokason]

Hello again -- my 14" ball python is feeding well. I just fed her for the second time since I purchased her. She's in a 20L with a water dish in the center, a hide on either side, coco substrate and some artificial plants throughout to make her feel more secure. She has a UTH with a thermostat around 90 and a halogen heat lamp that keeps the ambient temp around 80. I have foam core around the tank to help insulate and cardboard up top on the screen to help keep the humidity in. Right now the humidity is around 50.

The behavior I'm wondering about is this: I gave her a frozen/thawed mouse, and she quickly coiled around it, squeezed for a bit then pulled it into her hide. I covered up the front of her tank to give her some privacy while she ate. When I peeked in on her, I noticed that she was back out towards the center of the tank with her mouse -- and it was apparent that she had just drug the thing through her water dish, since it was now sopping wet. She was working on swallowing it down when I covered her up again.

Is this a normal BP behavior or just a peculiarity of my snake? Is it possible that this is because she's "used" to eating mice that are slightly damp? I took the time to dry this one off after watching some videos on feeding frozen/thawed but the previous one I didn't. I'm sure that the employees at the PetCo where I bought her didn't take the time to dry off the mouse either. This could be a completely paranoid question, and I decided to ask since I couldn't find anything on it via Google -- and well, if it is JUST that she likes to eat soggy mice, I'd like to have a good guess at it so I can potentially save myself the trouble of drying off a dead mouse!

[Spoons]

Just fed mine for the first time since I got him, and he dragged it into the water dish and thoroughly soaked it. I don't think it was intentional, he seemed to be trying to turn the mouse to eat it head first and that's just where it ended up.

[saelokason]

Maybe it was the same thing with mine -- though that was certainly an adventure from her hide to the water dish, if that is the case! Thank you for responding.

[KMG]

I doubt it was intentional but its not going to hurt anything. One of the craziest things Ive seen feeding my collection was my BRB eating its rat under water. He has done it twice and one of those times was with a gut explosion. That was really great.

[saelokason]

That sounds great. XD Yeah, I didn't think the mouse being wet would do any harm at all, it just seemed like a weird thing to do since she actually had to take it a good distance from where she had been eating it. It will remain a mystery since I didn't actually witness her getting it there. She ate, all's good. Since it isn't one of those "oh no this is a serious sign of disease" things, I'm going to just be amused by it. Had to get the paranoia out!

Thank you for responding.

[Viol8r]

Sounds unintentional. My Pastel Tiger caught his rat on top of the water bowl opposite from where he was. He ended up balling the rat in the water dish. Not sure if it suffocated or drowned, but he ate it before he got out of the water bowl.

[Paul's Pieds]

many years ago i had one that wouldn't eat any item she hadn't 'drowned' first. didn't matter where in the tub you fed her, she always dragged it to the water bowl and held it under before feeding. Now that i think about it i can't ever recall that snake ever constricting. I wonder if she never learned, or had some defect she couldn't constrict properly and decided to drown instead ? she wasn't very bright though, she never figured that f/t doesn't need drowning.

[Cold_Blooded_Designs]

How do you heat the rat before feeding and how hot is the rat before you offer the meal? My bet is she was getting the mouse into position to eat it and it went for a dive... But maybe the rat is too hot?? Even so, if it was I don't think the snake would even try to eat it. I personally don't feed F/T so there are more qualified people than me on the subject. But my guess is that this was a one time thing. Keep us posted if your snake keeps soaking before eating though. I'm kinda curious. Lol

[calmolly1]

The one time my girl drug hers into the water bowl, which seemed intentional as it was way the other side from where she struck, she literally dipped it in a few times the abandoned it. It is the only time she struck and coiled a f/t. She came back to the door and waited for more, which I had a large live mouse. Not even a second went by before she struck and constricted. Picky lady


Molly & Steve
0.1 normal BP 'Precioucess'
0.1 BCI 'Luna'

[Karokash]

My pastel, Kaa, has denied his last two feedings so honestly right now he could drag it through water and ask me for mustard as long as he got it down.

You should update the next few feeds and see if she does it often, it would be an amusing quirk of hers if so.