feeding troubles

well my bp ate his second rat today but he had a pretty hard time getting its front legs in his mouth. it took him about 15 mins to swallow it.when the rat got to his belly his scales werent spread apart but he definetly fatter.his neck is really skinny and it was red while swallowing but its fine now.he also has twitchy like movements when he finishes eating.is this normal and should i go back to mice?

How big is the snake and rat? Rats are better than mice but bigger is not always better. I don't think the snakes needs to work quiet as hard as you have described here. When I started breeding I fed huge rats. After talking to 8Ball Pythons, Adam suggested smaller rats more often. Works for me. Back off the size to rats the same size around as the snake and feed it every week.

when i was at the petstore the width of the rat looked perfect to the biggest part of my bp even when he had it in his mouth it still looked to be the right size but i guess it was a little bit too big.im going to try a different store that sells only frozen ones and see if the have some smaller ones.i dont think i can feed live anymore cuz before he got the rat he was just hovering right over his head it made me real nervous.

Sorry, but rats are not "better" than mice. Gram for gram, they are the same. It doesn't matter anyway since there hasn't been a study done on the nutritional requirements of Ball Pythons ;)

I also have a few 2000g+ girls who beg to differ, they lub their meece! I had one rescue female gain over 1500g(she was 780 when I got her) from May 06 to December 06 on 3-4 medium adult mice a week(skipping a week here and there too). If that's not good gain, I don't know what is :)