Is This Common?

I'm wondering if Thor is okay. On feeding day, he gets a small live rat. After he's killed it and released his hold, it takes forever for him to find the head of the rat so he can start eating it. He spends a lot if time nosing around on the wrong end and doing rotations with his head. He does eventually figure it out, but it can be a good hour for that to happen. Might he have some sort of disability? Maybe he's blind or neurologically damaged somehow? What do you all think? Here's a pic of him with his prey tonight. One thing I have noticed is that his eyes seem a little smaller than I've seen on other BPs. I don't think he's sick. This is his normal.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/18/a7y4aher.jpg


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Snakes are just dumb. I've seen both of mine do this between striking/constricting and eating. Heating the head up a bit extra if using frozen/thawed can help, but mostly once the body temperature cools the snakes just find a kinda pointy end and go.

I think some are just quicker at eating than others...I've had some that do exactly what you describe...takes them forever to figure out it's easier head first than butt first. Maybe he'll get better with age.

By the way, Thor is a really good looking snake...

I totally agree^ I think some eat quicker than others and for some it take them a little more time to get it down. But as long as he figures it out it's okay :) I've had some do this while they were young and they get better and better the older they get. I think the young ones just have a hard time sometimes.


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Thanks, everyone! At least he does eventually figure it out and I'm glad he's been eating regularly. Thor is a real looker, isn't he? He's a Desert Pastel and finished a shed last week, so he's looking extra spiffy at the moment. He's very chill too...I got lucky when I found him!


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Thor is a handsome little guy! You should take some more pics of him and share them with us :)


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Mine did that for about 3 straight feedings.. One of my smaller ball pythons successfully ate the large mouse tail first.. But the larger one couldn't do it so she just left it there.. So I hah to dangle it in front of her mouth and she ate it.. I was confused too when that happened

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All my more gentle pythons have done this before only one has not and takes less then two minutes to down her food. She just so happens to be the most aggressive and antisocial one i have. She will be the first to bite me im sure of it

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Originally Posted by sakura_noir

I'm wondering if Thor is okay. On feeding day, he gets a small live rat. After he's killed it and released his hold, it takes forever for him to find the head of the rat so he can start eating it. He spends a lot if time nosing around on the wrong end and doing rotations with his head. He does eventually figure it out, but it can be a good hour for that to happen. Might he have some sort of disability? Maybe he's blind or neurologically damaged somehow? What do you all think? Here's a pic of him with his prey tonight. One thing I have noticed is that his eyes seem a little smaller than I've seen on other BPs. I don't think he's sick. This is his normal.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/18/a7y4aher.jpg

Mine does the same thing. One thing I have found is to hold the rat so that it appears to be walking on all fours and have it face to face with the snake. This will cause her to strike the head and be in feeding position once the constricting is done. She usually eats right away. Here is a picture of how she does.http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/18/unagynur.jpg

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My girl's not so good at eating either. She "kills" the rat and sometimes she'll try to find the head then realize she bit the middle of it and not it's face so she'll let go and curl up and cuddle with it while she looks for its head(it looks like she tries to hide the fact that she can't find it and just uses her eyes to look and moves as little as possible until she located the head), then she just swallows it pretty fast.