more a curiosity than a concern about eating...

so my girl Kova eats like a CHAMP, she never denies food. however, she will strike, bite, and constrict like she means buisness. she holds on for maybe 20 seconds making sure her dead rat is dead lol, then she will let go and smell up and down and around the rat but doesn't eat it. once she drops it and starts smelling it I pick it up with the tongs again (sometimes she will grab it as if to say "hey, that's mine") and by the thirdish attempt she will strike, bite and eat all in one. it doesn't worry me because she is eating and holding down her food, just wondering if anyone has noticed similar behavior in feeding and if it means something?

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Originally Posted by jcorsaletti

so my girl Kova eats like a CHAMP, she never denies food. however, she will strike, bite, and constrict like she means buisness. she holds on for maybe 20 seconds making sure her dead rat is dead lol, then she will let go and smell up and down and around the rat but doesn't eat it. once she drops it and starts smelling it I pick it up with the tongs again (sometimes she will grab it as if to say "hey, that's mine") and by the thirdish attempt she will strike, bite and eat all in one. it doesn't worry me because she is eating and holding down her food, just wondering if anyone has noticed similar behavior in feeding and if it means something?

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In my experience, snakes will usually kill their pre-killed food dead, drop it and sniff around it for awhile, and then eat it

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both Spaghetti and Coffee Bean have done things like this where it seems they "lose" their food. one time i had Coffee Bean strike, constrict and unwrap a feeder only to come half out of her tub and towards me, as if she thought i had the rat.

has Kova ever eaten where you've just left her alone after the first strike+coil?

You might just not be giving her enough time. Mine used to take quite a while to sniff around his prey after "killing" it, in part to decide where to start eating it from. He started doing it less when he really got down the "This part is the head - eat the head first" bit.

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Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

both Spaghetti and Coffee Bean have done things like this where it seems they "lose" their food. one time i had Coffee Bean strike, constrict and unwrap a feeder only to come half out of her tub and towards me, as if she thought i had the rat.

has Kova ever eaten where you've just left her alone after the first strike+coil?

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she currently still has Aspen bedding (I am taking that out soon) but with that being said I haven't left the rat with her after she drops it, only for the fear that she will drag it through the Aspen and eat it and get sick. probably not that serious, but as a brand new snake mom you hear these stories about feeding on Aspen and they can be very scary so I'm super cautious. By the time her next feed is she will be on newspaper/papertowels so I will try letting her just do her thing, maybe that's how she likes to eat :)

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Originally Posted by Kcl

You might just not be giving her enough time. Mine used to take quite a while to sniff around his prey after "killing" it, in part to decide where to start eating it from. He started doing it less when he really got down the "This part is the head - eat the head first" bit.

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It's funny you say that because that was my thought process with her smelling like she is trying to decide where she wants to start lol