What to do if the rat starts fighting back

I've easily, conservatively, fed over 24,000 live feeders in the years I've been keeping ball pythons. Never have I shoved anything into a rats mouth or interfered in the feeding, other than to remove feeders that aren't constricted and eaten. Believe it or not, our ball pythons are perfectly capable of dispatching an appropriately sized live prey item without any interference from their keeper. :) Even oddly hit strikes, none of my snakes have suffered anything more than a random scratch. None of those scratches been anything more than cosmetic (no blood).

You guys were right, she knew what she was doing. She constricted around the rat in such a way that it was impossible for the rat to bite at her.

Well the 3 1/2 month fast is over...hopefully she'll go back to f/t