Ball Python eating mouse weird

okay well my BP is doing great! he's growing at a very fast rate and his colors are amazing! (Pastel) haha but the thing is when i feed him a small rat he strikes it on the head coils it till he thinks he killed it (i feed F/T) then he looks for the butt and swallows it backwards O_o is this something i should be concerned about? he never did it before but it now happened two weeks in a row!

Don't worry, as long as hes not trying to eat it sideways, then you should be fine. Some of them just need to figure out where the head is. But eaten rat is eaten rat, so all is good in the end.

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Originally Posted by steveboos

Don't worry, as long as hes not trying to eat it sideways, then you should be fine. Some of them just need to figure out where the head is. But eaten rat is eaten rat, so all is good in the end.

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Nice choice of words given the topic:laughing:

Mouse or rat?

Usually but not always when they eat backwards the prey item is too small.

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Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

Mouse or rat?

Usually but not always when they eat backwards the prey item is too small.

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Rat a small Rat and a relief to hear that its okay :P thanks everyone!!!

I don't know that much yet about BPs. But butt munching is a common corn snake thing, and they will do it even with appropriately sized prey items. I've seen my own 2010 corns do it with their pink mice (which is the right prey size) and one of my adult corns does it with his large adult mice (ditto). And some corns seem to do it reliably even though the are being fed properly.

A proper meal in the snake is all that really matters, I think. It's not like it's indigestible if eaten from the "wrong" end. ;)

just think of it as the snake wanting to use the fur to wipe that nasty butt taste out lol.. It better than watching you snake try to start in the middle of the rodent and force it down. (dum black rat snake I has she start were ever she had hold of her prey and start sallowing some times not even bother ing to conctrict it.

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Originally Posted by mechnut450

just think of it as the snake wanting to use the fur to wipe that nasty butt taste out lol.. It better than watching you snake try to start in the middle of the rodent and force it down. (dum black rat snake I has she start were ever she had hold of her prey and start sallowing some times not even bother ing to conctrict it.

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I have corns that eat f/t that just slither up & start swallowing. They won't constrict. I have also seen the start-in-the-middle thing once with a friend's smallish albino burm who was eating rabbits at the time and tried to fold them in the middle & couldn't figure out WHY they couldn't get their mouth around the rabbit of the day. My friend had to REMOVE the burm from the rabbit & then offer the rabbit head first. Thankfully, the burm was on p/k but the snake looked so frustrated that this wasn't working. :laughing:

Gah one of mine has started to do the slither up to it and swallow it thing without constricting too. Is that something to worry about?

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Originally Posted by Radchimera

Gah one of mine has started to do the slither up to it and swallow it thing without constricting too. Is that something to worry about?

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Nothing to worry about. Sounds like it's just a spoiled snake that knows it's food isn't gonna fight back lol.


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