Strike but no bite and coil??

Anyone ever have this happen? Today was feeding day and everyone ate well except Little miss hissy pants aka "Pocahontas". She is definately my additude problem BP and almost strikes me and hisses at me EVERY time I open her lid.

But tonight when I put her rat in she just kept striking it but never coiling it. She would get back in the S position, then strike it and throw it across her tub!!!!! She did this like 4 or 5 TIMES!!! :eek: After 20 minutes of waiting for her to do her thing and nothing but her throwing it around like a rag doll, I took the rat out!!! What the heck was she doing?? BTW it was a live rat:( Scared the hell out of it!

sounds like a defensive strike, not a feeding response....she was likely pissed off and wanted the rat out of her space, just didnt want to eat it

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Originally Posted by Uncle Festae

sounds like a defensive strike, not a feeding response....she was likely pissed off and wanted the rat out of her space, just didnt want to eat it

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Yup...I second this supposition. I actually give my snake about 2-3 minutes to decide if she's going to eat her rat or not. If she doesn't show immediate interest, it comes out and she waits another week to eat. (This pretty much only happens when she's in shed, nowadays)

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Originally Posted by JLC

Yup...I second this supposition. I actually give my snake about 2-3 minutes to decide if she's going to eat her rat or not. If she doesn't show immediate interest, it comes out and she waits another week to eat. (This pretty much only happens when she's in shed, nowadays)

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Thirded... this may not be a hard and fast rule, but in my experience, if you see a few defensive strikes at a rat, take it out and wait a week. I wish all of my girls were that obvious when they didnt want the food... a lot of times this happens they are in shed and cant see very well, but it is obvious they just dont want anything hot and moving near them as they treat my hand the same way.

Nothing to worry about imo, just wait a week.

OK Thanks everyone. Darn she's not in shed that I can tell...but man does she have additude!!!!! LOTS of it!! Ok now I have to keep another rat quarantined from my breeders!!


Thanks!:rockon: