Young BP striking at air during feeding time?
While feeding Newman this week, as well as last week, I heated up the rat pup with his cage top off and the bag open so he really got a good whiff. He started coming out of his hide within 30 seconds or a minute of the blow dryer turning on.
As soon as I picked up the rat pup and brought it near his cage, he started striking at the air and fake leaks in the upper part of his cage (3-4 strikes, completely missing the pup). I touched the pup to his nose and guided him down closer to the bottom and he took it right away.
Is this normal behavior? I'll upload a video shortly, it isn't great because I had to keep moving his food around to show him where it was. He had a bad shed, but doesn't appear to still have his eye caps and I got 95% of it off aside from the top of his head and neck.
Re: Young BP striking at air during feeding time?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Homegrownscales
That's defensive striking.
That doesn't look like defensive striking, and doesn't appear to be a snake under any sort of stress. So here is my theory based on what I saw in the video...
As the OP mentioned, the snake came out pretty much right after he started warming up the rat pup. Obviously looking for it's food, it was picking up heat signals from the heat lamp sitting right over the fake foliage, and since that was the only thing it could make out carrying any sort of heat with the scent of rat in the air, it was striking at the leaves.
To the OP, I doubt there's anything wrong, but if it concerns you at all, I'd suggest picking up the pace a bit or shutting your heat source off a few minutes ahead of time.
Re: Young BP striking at air during feeding time?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
RobNJ
That doesn't look like defensive striking, and doesn't appear to be a snake under any sort of stress. So here is my theory based on what I saw in the video...
As the OP mentioned, the snake came out pretty much right after he started warming up the rat pup. Obviously looking for it's food, it was picking up heat signals from the heat lamp sitting right over the fake foliage, and since that was the only thing it could make out carrying any sort of heat with the scent of rat in the air, it was striking at the leaves.
To the OP, I doubt there's anything wrong, but if it concerns you at all, I'd suggest picking up the pace a bit or shutting your heat source off a few minutes ahead of time.
That was exactly my first reaction when watching the video. Try turning off the heat lamp AND taking it off of the screen top before offering the rat. Those bulbs take forever to cool down. Let us know if this helps.....
