Feeding confusion

So I just got my first ball python and he had his first meal with me. He was happy to eat but I noticed that he grabbed his mouse by the ass instead of the head and didn't drop it to correct his hold. He had no problem swallowing it down, but I just wondered if this was something other people encountered or had problems with.

It happens, nothing to be worried about

LB pulled that the first few feedings he got..

Young BPs tend to eat backwards some times. Most all of them grow out of it and begin to look for the head first.

And some won't grow out of it. xD

I have a year and a half old male that still eats from the wrong end. Takes twice as long to eat as when it is done the right way. His name is dumb-dumb.

I have a three year old normal that doesn't care which way he eats it as long as it goes down. I'm pretty sure he would eat it side ways if thats how he had a hold on it lol. :gj:

I have a year old girl that did this last week with her live rat. She actually bit it on the back leg and got herself wrapped around it so the head was moving around. I sat there and held the tongs in it's mouth so it didn't bite her, but the worst part was she wasn't suffocating the rat AT ALL. It just screamed non stop. After like 10 minutes it slowed down and she started to unwind slowly, but once it moved again she started squeezing again but this time a different part and the rat stopped making noise shortly after. They usually figure it out where ever they latch onto.

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Originally Posted by bks2100

I have a year old girl that did this last week with her live rat. She actually bit it on the back leg and got herself wrapped around it so the head was moving around. I sat there and held the tongs in it's mouth so it didn't bite her, but the worst part was she wasn't suffocating the rat AT ALL. It just screamed non stop. After like 10 minutes it slowed down and she started to unwind slowly, but once it moved again she started squeezing again but this time a different part and the rat stopped making noise shortly after. They usually figure it out where ever they latch onto.

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Ugh...i saw this once at a reptile rescue place I used to visit as a teen. It was a bit worse though. It was a hognose the decided it did not need to wrap the mouse. It grabbed it by the but and then just start swallowing. The mouse just squealed and squealed. The owner of the rescue said in the 30 years he kept and rescued reptiles he had never seen anything like it. I had no interest and sitting through that so I left. I came back the next week and the snake was fine. The owner said he eventually took a knife and severed the spine behind the brain on the mouse as it was struggling and the snake couldn't eat or kill it in its odd position and the squealing had already gone on for and hour. Really crazy.

I had a blood python that ate backwards every time no matter what. It freaked me out at first too.