Ball Pythons are not very smart LOL

To their credit, they are cute, mostly nice cuddly pets and the are great at finding that one place you don't want them to get into (like my partner's expensive speaker). However I just spent the last 20 minutes watching my banana BP trying to eat a frozen thawed rat sideways. Granted, he's only a year old, but he's been eating this size of rat for awhile. He struck it and "killed" it and then proceeded to try to eat it sideways, working his mouth back and forth across the abdomen. When that didn't work, he contorted himself many ways to try to make it fit. When I tried to help him by taking it back with the tongs he played tug-o-war with me. Finally he let it go, and I removed it, gave him a 5 minute break, and gave it to him again. He took it nose first and ate it in like 30 seconds. :8:

My ratsnake actually takes time to drop the "kill" and then poke around until she finds the nose of her mouse before attempting to eat it.

They eventually always figure it out however it seems. Sometimes their instinct to eat just takes over what we would call common sense....heck, retics will destroy their faces by pushing against the enclosure if not fed enough or sometimes for no reason at all. I'm not sure if I would be messing with the rat though after you've offered it.

It happens with the young ones. They are still learning. The adults usually have it figured out after a couple hundred meals in their belt.

I keep an eye on my snakes once they've taken prey, & sometimes I "help" a little using my tongs to adjust. My 19 year-old corn snake has a good appetite
but often has trouble eating: he'll grab it, then go for the wrong places like yours did, only then he drops it & wanders around...if I don't intervene, he'll end
up not eating, but typically after a couple tries (w/ my help) he gets the right end. He never had this trouble when he was younger...grandpa needs reading
glasses now. ;) His vision isn't what it used to be & it makes a difference. I've seen this in other old rat snakes too.

It's common to see young snakes of all kinds trying to eat sideways or butt-first. Their excitement appears to take precedence over using visual clues.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

I keep an eye on my snakes once they've taken prey, & sometimes I "help" a little using my tongs to adjust. My 19 year-old corn snake has a good appetite
but often has trouble eating: he'll grab it, then go for the wrong places like yours did, only then he drops it & wanders around...if I don't intervene, he'll end
up not eating, but typically after a couple tries (w/ my help) he gets the right end. He never had this trouble when he was younger...grandpa needs reading
glasses now. ;) His vision isn't what it used to be & it makes a difference. I've seen this in other old rat snakes too.

It's common to see young snakes of all kinds trying to eat sideways or butt-first. Their excitement appears to take precedence over using visual clues.

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Actually I think contact lenses would work better than glasses for "grandpa!" :eyepoppin Our pinstripe BP has horrible eyesight, one of the first things we observed when we got her. One eye cap is always a bit wrinkled. At first we thought it was a retained eyecap, but it's not. She probably just hurt it at some point.

Hey, do elderly snakes change color or get gray? We had a very old Beta fish that literally turned mostly gray before it finally died of old age.

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Originally Posted by FollowTheSun

Actually I think contact lenses would work better than glasses for "grandpa!" :eyepoppin Our pinstripe BP has horrible eyesight, one of the first things we observed when we got her. One eye cap is always a bit wrinkled. At first we thought it was a retained eyecap, but it's not. She probably just hurt it at some point.

Hey, do elderly snakes change color or get gray? We had a very old Beta fish that literally turned mostly gray before it finally died of old age.

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No they don't turn gray or fade, good question though. I didn't know that about Beta fish...how long can they live? Poor things, most have such a miserable existence
because of clueless owners...:(

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

No they don't turn gray or fade, good question though. I didn't know that about Beta fish...how long can they live? Poor things, most have such a miserable existence
because of clueless owners...:(

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The one we had lived about 4.5 years, all the way through my high school years and it died after I left for college. My mom took very good care of it and really enjoyed it, and even had it trained to beg for food. I do feel very sorry for the ones in the store, most of them probably don't live very long. :-(

Yes I have watched my contort around to get to the head. Their problem is they won't let go. If they would let go and then grab the right end it would be so much easier. Lol!
But nature has them programmed to not let that already dead meal get away. :snake:

Ever since I switched to rats with my BP, he does the same thing. So now after its thawed, I'll take the rat and pull his chin up in an effort to straighten him. Lol. The chin down causes my boy a lot of extra work.

When my royal was a baby he started eating a rat from the rear, it took him a long time but he muscle thru. He hasn't done it again in 50+ feeding he has had after that. Like others said, they learn. :D