Missing when striking at rat

I have a zebra bee that strikes and misses at every offered meal. Is there anything I can do to help her be more successful? DJ

I have a spinner that's the same way. Gotta love the spider gene. Fortunately mine is on f/t so I put the rat's nose right in front of hers so she only misses half the time.

Mine is on f/t too. She just strikes so violently she pushes the rat out of the way.

For my animals that are prone to this, I take extra care to ensure I've got a nice warm spot on the f/t rat right at the head (using a hair dryer) and then dance it pretty much nose to nose with the snake (within reason) to help their aim. Those are the animals that have helped my own "strike reflex" the most. For them, I'm paying really close attention to their behavior in order to ensure I'm not surprised when then do and have a pull away reflex myself. Sure, they're still "special" every now and again, but I've greatly decreased the number of times I need to reheat a rat because a hungry snake took too long to figure their stuff out.

My male has missed a few times over the years, I feed live and he's a picky eater. His temps and humidity etc have always been spot on, some just aren't that accurate :P are they successful after the miss or do they just try the first time and give up?

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Originally Posted by BMorrison

My male has missed a few times over the years, I feed live and he's a picky eater. His temps and humidity etc have always been spot on, some just aren't that accurate :P are they successful after the miss or do they just try the first time and give up?

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I have two spiders that are train wrecks. I try to feed them when they are calm which doesn't make a lot of sense unless you are around them all the time. When they do miss, most of the time they will get too excited and trying to feed them is a lost cause at that point. If I really "need" them to eat I will try again in a half hour if not I will wait until the next feeding cycle. I have another spider that likes "road kill", dead and laying still. She is by far one of my easiest snakes to feed.

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

I have two spiders that are train wrecks. I try to feed them when they are calm which doesn't make a lot of sense unless you are around them all the time. When they do miss, most of the time they will get too excited and trying to feed them is a lost cause at that point. If I really "need" them to eat I will try again in a half hour if not I will wait until the next feeding cycle. I have another spider that likes "road kill", dead and laying still. She is by far one of my easiest snakes to feed.

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Haha I hear ya furio my male was like that until he went about a year off food, wouldn't take frozen got them both on live and they rarely miss meals anymore. He's weird because sometimes it'll take him 3-4 strikes to connect.

I was having the same problem and ended up offering a live mouse.... she didn't even hesitate in scarfing it down

Just a little update...she finally hit it on the 3rd try today.