Odd feeding activity?

[shadow reaper]

I fed my snake last night for the second time. The first time he was a little reluctant to hit it, but took it, dragged it around, and then ate it. Last night, he came right out of his hide and hit it within a couple minutes. I was pleased as punch, but then things got weird.

As he was wrapped around it, I put the top back on his enclosure and replaced the black light and ceramic light. After a couple minutes, he uncoiled and began sniffing around the rat. Soon, it looked like he was losing interest and started to sniff around the cage. He started to move toward the ceramic light and then he struck at the air! He struck twice, then smelled all around the area of the rat, and returned to the area by the ceramic light and struck at the air again. After the second time, we turned off the ceramic light.

After the third time, he returned to the rat, ate it completely, yawned once, and returned to his hot hide.

I'm still very new to snakes, as I've only had this guy about a week and a half, but I've never come across anything like this before. Is this normal, is he ok? I'm guessing because we turned the ceramic on he was striking at the heat signature.

[Sonny1318]

Next time try warming up the prey with a hair dryer. My boys like to strike at lights and heating pads too, especially during feeding. I seen this behavior many times, lol.

[shadow reaper]

I did warm it up with the baggie in very warm water method, but I'll try the hairdryer next week. Thank you, it's good to know that this wasn't something uncommon! Between all the forums, FAQ's, and tutorials, I've never seen it mentioned, I thought something could be wrong, glad to know he's normal, haha!

[dorydiver]

Yep, this happens. Especially if the rat cools down to ambient temp while they're "killing" it.
Most of them figure it out eventually, as you saw. But I second using the hairdryer (and use a temp gun to check that the temperature of the rat gets up around 100 degrees F). It also often helps to warm the head up higher than the rest of the body for the guys that seem to have trouble finding their food. If they drop the rat after constricting, they tend to hone in on the head again a bit easier that way (ever watched a snake try to repeatedly eat a rat foot-first? It's hilarious and depressing at the same time. lol). Sometimes the head being warmer is enough to make sure they strike the head first and don't even let go to swallow.

I just definitely recommend making sure you check temps with the temp gun if you're going to heat it with a hairdryer - perfectly fine to do, you just don't know how hot it'll make the rat unless you check. I've seen a snake (I didn't do it!) with a burn on the inside of his mouth after eating a rat heated up with a hairdryer - I suspect the body was warmed up nicely, but the head got waaaaay (way) too hot in the process. Snake bit, went to swallow the head, stopped, spit it out a couple minutes later, wouldn't touch it after. Nice little burn on the roof of the mouth.
That's not meant to scare you, and a hairdryer is a perfectly acceptable way to heat rats up....just, like anything you do for snakes regarding changing temperatures and heating, take the extra 30 seconds to check the temp and don't just ballpark it, especially at first.