Ball python shaking while it eats

I caught a video of my ball eating today, the second time since I bought him. I noticed while looking through the video that at one point for a minute or so he will shake as he eats. Totally normal otherwise, finished eating and went into his hide. No shaking any other time that I've noticed. Totally normal feeding. Acts normal, drinks, poops, explores in the evening, etc etc. Cage temps are normal, 90 on one side and 80 on the other, 55% humidity. Is it something I should be worried about? Here's the video, you can see it starting about 7:45. I thought maybe it was the bent position his neck was in, as he stops after he shifts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_wCaneb0D0

waiting for the video to finish loading.

Dat Strike O.o
I'm glad you posted this. I was not aware BP's sat for so long without activity after striking. I would have been posting worrying comments about how he fell asleep and how do I help, haha.

It does look positional though, if you look again you can see at around 6:15 when he is bending like that he's already starting to shake a little. And from there he just got himself all sorts of twisted. It looks like its just the muscles he uses to swallow are causing him to shake when he's at that weird angle.

Just compare next week's feeding I guess, but it doesn't look like any sort of neuro issue, at least from my limited knowledge of what I've read up on so far, especially since the issue seems to resolve we
ll before he is finished. There's a slight wobble there at the end but I think that's just from holding up the new weight.

Overall looks like a healthy feed to me, I'd give anything for Kaa to strike like that tomorrow, but again i'm no expert. Thanks for sharing though. He's a good looking boy.

That's what I'm hoping. I will take another video of his feeding on Sunday to compare to I suppose!

I didn't know they stayed coiled that long either. They've gotta be extra sure it's dead, you never know :rolleyes:

Nothing to worry about. :)

As mentioned it's just the strain as he uses his muscles to push into it and lift it up. But I love the dots on the back of his head. :bow:

Me too! I LOVE his dots. They remind me of the brown dots on a Rottweiler's or Doberman's eyebrows.

Thanks for the reassurances. I was going to just wait and see if it happened again next week but I was thinking about it too much. :)

I'm glad I didn't sound completely ridiculous when I was reassuring you. I look forward to seeing the video of his next feed, whether it's even necessary or not. I'm hoping the one I try to do tomorrow will turn out alright. Iphone quality and all :/

I just got a new lemonblast BP. I came here looking for info on this very issue. My little guy is only 5 moths old and I just fed him for the first time. He did the very same thing as the OP's BP. I have not seen him shake any other time except when he took his food. He also made his neck into an "s" shape to make the prey go down if that makes sense? Would love to know more about this. Anyone have anymore info?

I think they just make unusual movement sometimes and they're trying to get the food down.
Poor ball pythons in the wild don't know that in captivity food comes down from above head first. LOL :) ;)

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He looks healthy to me as well, and he's a good looking snake! He did a great strike and seems to be eating with gusto so I'd say he's healthy. Like others have said it looks like the shaking is just from the strain of holding his head and the prey in that position while trying to eat.

EDIT: ... just realized this thread is from 2014

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lyeah

He also made his neck into an "s" shape to make the prey go down if that makes sense? Would love to know more about this. Anyone have anymore info?

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This is completely normal, doing the ripply "s" shape with their necks helps them push the food down to their stomachs.