More feeding issues...confused by F/T?

Tonight we fed Sansa a F/T rat pup...which it took her about 20 minutes to eat.

I'm a little concerned, although i know other people have similar problems. She tried striking at it when it was about room temp several times and missed TERRIBLY every. single. time. So I put the pup down on the ground like usual, and it took her a very long time to try to figure out where the head was. She frequently eats tail first, and almost never strikes.

This time, we waited and then warmed the rat pup up in warm water. She had an easier time after that. We don't usually do that because we tried a couple times for her first few feedings but she always ate overnight.

I see videos of other peoples' BPs striking and eating with ease and I just worry that she has such a hard time. =(

I think she is very confused by F/T, but based on her aim, I don't know how she ever managed to eat live with the breeder!

Does this improve with age? She is about 9 months old now. It almost seems like her eyesight is affected, but she is not skittish about being handled or sudden movements with people, it's just the difficulty eating. She is definitely enthusiastic about it, just TERRIBLE at the execution.

Is there anything I can do to make it easier for her? Should I be concerned about any of this? She has been eating weekly like clockwork, but watching her try to eat is painful; it just takes forever for her to figure out which way to get it down.

It wasn't warm enough.. It needs to be very very warm. Many people heat up a completely thawed rat using a hair dryer for a short time on both sides of the head. Warm water or even hot water will not bring a dead rat to the same temperature as a live one.

If your snake eats the thawed rats overnight there is no reason to dangle it and frustrate her. Just heat it up, drop it in on the hot side, and leave her to it.


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Them heat pits ain't just for show. Your bp smells the rat then is striking at the closest heat source(your hand). Using long feeding tongs and/or not heating the rat up enough could be the cause of these bad strikes. I offer by hand so they smell the rat and sense the heat but when they strike towards me they hit rat. As your BP gets older it'll more than likely get better so long as you don't keep changing your methods up on it. They're far from smart but simple routines are not beyond them.

Definately it isn't wamr enough. I have had that happen with my male twice now. If he misses 2-3 times then I reheat it. Normally when I do that he hits on first try. :gj:

X2 Blow dryer method should cure your problem I alway try to get the rats head up to about 100f before I offer :)

My killer bee has a bit of that "spider wobble". When I first got him, he would miss striking the f/t meal and I blamed the "wobble". I started running the f/t meal in a plastic bag under running hot water for about a minute or so before offering it to him on tongs. Now he rarely ever misses and if he does he comes right back at it.

Also if she is eating by leaving it in her cage overnight, she is still eating.