My BP spat up her rat...then ate it again.

So, my little girl (about 6 months, 170g) is never very good at coiling her food... I feed her F/T rat pups every 5 days and she's never refused a meal, but more often than not she has a heavy coil on top of her little neck by the time she starts eating. Usually she figures out that isn't going to work by the time she gets halfway down the rat and pulls her head out from under herself (without dropping the rat) but apparently not tonight :confusd:

Tonight when she coiled her rat she really balled up around it, and by the time she got to the hind legs she seemed stuck. I looked away for a minute and when I looked back she looked like she was done, except there was a slimy furry thing amongst her coils :/ Then she stretched out, dragged her slimy rat through her mulch and ate it (again).

Her ball constriction technique. She may have eaten it sideways the first time, I couldn't tell.
http://puu.sh/6AMrv.jpg

Take 2 (I brushed off the mulch...)
http://puu.sh/6ANin.jpg

Anyway, she's my first and only snake, so I'm wondering if this is something I should be concerned about? or if this is just something snakes do? Should I treat it like a regurge? She ate the rat just fine the second time, and now she's hanging out in one of her hides. But I'm going to keep a close eye on her for the next few days :(


Setup: 36"x18"x18" Exo-Terra glass terrarium, covered on sides, top 90% covered with foil. Hot hide 88-90, cool hide 78-80, ambient 80-85. UTH on hot side and red heat lamps to maintain ambient temps, digital probe thermometers in the hides and infrared temp gun. Cypress mulch, humidity at 60% now since she's going into shed, also have some damp moss in the cool hide.

It never reached the stomach so no worries there.


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

If she ate again, I wouldn't worry about it. Sometimes they just suck at being snakes.

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Originally Posted by Misha

If she ate again, I wouldn't worry about it. Sometimes they just suck at being snakes.

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HAHAAHAH this made me laugh so hard

Just let your snake do snakey things. Whether or not they are good at it right now, they'll learn eventually.

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Originally Posted by Misha

If she ate again, I wouldn't worry about it. Sometimes they just suck at being snakes.

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That made me LOL!!!

Thanks everyone! I was hoping it was just her being pretty bad at eating (while still actually eating) :rolleyes:

I was talking to an employee at a local pet store last week who feeds her BP live. She said she's heard a lot of stories about BPs who were raised on pre-killed/frozen being really bad at constricting... I'm wondering how true that is. It seems to be in Beanie's case. I hope she stays on F/T, or figures out how to be a snake before she figures out how to be a picky eater.

Not true all of my snakes that eat f/t coil just fine in fact while holding a tail with my Hemostat not tight just enough to hold it on the air my spider bp ripped off the small rats tail!

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Originally Posted by cedor

Not true all of my snakes that eat f/t coil just fine in fact while holding a tail with my Hemostat not tight just enough to hold it on the air my spider bp ripped off the small rats tail!

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My Rizzo did something similar. When she snatched it from the hemostat (I was dangling it by its tail), but the way Rizzo snatched it made the mouse explode!! So, when Rizzo raised her head and neck straight up to let the mouse sliiiide down, mouse guts were falling off her chin.

All I could do was supervise with this look on my face: D: LOL

I made sure Rizzo ate it all, and (gently) gave her a bath afterwards to get the mouse slop off of her.


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Sounds like your snakes don't suck at being snakes :D

There have been many times where Bean has finished constricting her rat (after striking it on the butt), uncoiled, then danced around it, poked it with her nose, crawled in and out of her hide and tied knots in herself for about ten minutes all while trying to find the rat's head to start eating.

She's getting a bit better at actually striking it on the head in the first place, lately... Maybe she still has some learning to do :P

(In other news, I must have missed her actually being in blue and just caught her clearing up, because I found her shed skin today! Her first shed at home and it was absolutely perfect, all in one piece, no stuck eyecaps. I'm a happy snake mommy.)