My ball just ate a rat alive..

Kind of disturbing.. and it's my first time seeing this. tonight is feeding night. dropped all the live rats in there like i always do. checked back on em a few minutes later, and my Blue eyed lucy had a rat's head swallowed but i could see the rat's stomach still gasping for air and hear it moaning from inside the snakes mouth. poor thing. it was close to dead any ways.. and i dont usually feel bad for the rats, i'm moreso happy the snakes are actually eating. lol i'm just glad my girl wasn't over this time. she probably would've cried. lol

anyone else ever seen this?

this is the same snake that i've seen snatch up a rat without even striking. needless to say, she's one of my best eaters. lol
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/09/16/ehe6a7e5.jpg

This is why I don't feed live. It's amazing to watch them eat, but man... I'd feel so bad for those mice. I'm pretty tender hearted. :-/

Never seen this and you would think even a exhausted rat would fight back especially that size. The snake must have bit it in the right place to like paralyze it.

I know it's not anything you did deliberately but you've created quite a sad and disturbing image in my mind.:(

My one suggestion, if you are going to feed live, you should never leave them alone.

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Originally Posted by Wizard

I know it's not anything you did deliberately but you've created quite a sad and disturbing image in my mind.:(

My one suggestion, if you are going to feed live, you should never leave them alone.

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I don't really think there was anything to be done in this situation. Sure, the OP could have maybe tugged on the rat's tail to evoke a coiling response in the snake, but there's no guarantee that's what would've happened. For all we know, it could have caused the snake to refuse the meal altogether, leaving OP with a half dead rat to dispatch. Just my .02


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Originally Posted by Wizard

I know it's not anything you did deliberately but you've created quite a sad and disturbing image in my mind.:(

My one suggestion, if you are going to feed live, you should never leave them alone.

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I tried doing that with mine, the rats or ASF's kept jumping out of the tubs if I left them open enough to watch the action. I haven't had a BP eat a still alive live feeder, but my kings used to when they were getting mouse fuzzies or rat pinkies, and it's part of why I switched them to f/t.

I'm feeding mine frozen thawed and also somewhat for the same reason. I have a heart,although I will treat him to live here n there though

I had an adorable rat fuzzy that was whimpering for a minute or two before my Butterpin grabed him... :( really trying to kick her off live.

wow, that's an amazing picture. So let me get this straight, your snake struck the rat than let go of the rat with his mouth and is just coiling it to death with his body before he eats it? I never seen this before my ball python always keeps his mouth on the rat. Also, i never heard of a BP starting to eat the rat before its dead, don't they usually coil it until its dead than start swallowing it?

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Originally Posted by TheSnakeGeek

Kind of disturbing.. and it's my first time seeing this. tonight is feeding night. dropped all the live rats in there like i always do. checked back on em a few minutes later, and my Blue eyed lucy had a rat's head swallowed but i could see the rat's stomach still gasping for air and hear it moaning from inside the snakes mouth. poor thing. it was close to dead any ways.. and i dont usually feel bad for the rats, i'm moreso happy the snakes are actually eating. lol i'm just glad my girl wasn't over this time. she probably would've cried. lol

anyone else ever seen this?

this is the same snake that i've seen snatch up a rat without even striking. needless to say, she's one of my best eaters. lol
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/09/16/ehe6a7e5.jpg

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I'm sorry that happened to you :( I'd be a little disturbed as well if I saw it happening to. That's why I can't feed live. I hate the way some of them scream and squeak when they are being constricted. Hopefully you won't have to witness any more disturbing events next feeding day.


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Originally Posted by kat_black181

This is why I don't feed live. It's amazing to watch them eat, but man... I'd feel so bad for those mice. I'm pretty tender hearted. :-/

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im a little tender hearted too. i love all animals. even have a couple sweetheart rats that are strictly pets. lol i felt bad for the little guy, but really i don't think he was conscious. he was knocked out enough for my snake to think he was dead and not put up a fight. i feed live because it works better for me. less waste if food is refused and i see an all around better feeding response from my snakes.

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Originally Posted by ATTFighter

wow, that's an amazing picture. So let me get this straight, your snake struck the rat than let go of the rat with his mouth and is just coiling it to death with his body before he eats it? I never seen this before my ball python always keeps his mouth on the rat. Also, i never heard of a BP starting to eat the rat before its dead, don't they usually coil it until its dead than start swallowing it?

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it didn't strike at all. the rat went to crawl over that part of the snake's body and it just wrapped it up real quick without striking. and i'm assuming it coiled it until it thought it was dead, and then after starting to eat it the rat kinda "came back to life," or rather, started breathing again.

I have had something similar happen. I caught my Black Pastel het Hypo gal eating a rat that was still kicking a bit. It was odd to see, but there were no ill effects. I reckon she was just in a hurry. Also, I am sure it happens a lot more often than we think, but we just do not catch it. I made sure when I fed her any live after that, that after she coiled I would pull on the tail and make her REALLY coil it. No problems after that (and she is on F/T now).

As for the folks that go on and on about ALWAYS feeding F/T, when you have enough animals you will run in to some that will just not eat F/T, or you may be in the process of transitioning (there are also several other valid reasons that some folks feed live, but that is neither here nor there).

Very much a freak occurance but it might've made a difference if you tugged a bit on the feeder with some tongs. I just recently had a 900g female not fully kill the rat and she started to chew, I tugged on the feeder while lifting the BP gently. She quickly wrapped and constricted.

The vast majority of the time the natural way is just as humane as CO2. If the prey is appropriately sized I have noticed loss of consciousness within 15-20 seconds from all my feedings. Not to mention the feeder isn't feeling too much due to the neuro chemicals that are racing through its body after getting grabbed.

I have actually had this happen to... it does suck... i have tried to switch to f/t but none of mine will take it. So i have to do live. I feel bad but I do know that it is the circle of life. But I always make sure I am sitting right there until they have grabbed the rat. But one of my girls grabbed a rat one time and so we thought killed it... she started to eat it and it actually came back to life and started kicking its back legs and trying to escape. She coiled around it right away when that happened but honestly she had this look of oh crap on her face when that rat came back to life haha... i did feel bad though....

I have to say.... if you are willing to own a snake you must be willing to feed live if need be. I love critters of all shapes and sizes, but I quickly came to terms with feeding live when all else failed for 2 months with my hatchling.
I would never do it as "entertainment" but if its between my snake eating or not...live it is.

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If I had to, I'd feed live. But, as long as my girl keeps pounding 'em down like a champ, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. She's a little piggy. Haha

I have had an upsetting situation happen recently. A new hatchling that hasn't had its first meal yet is getting defensive and striking quite a bit without latching on and coiling. I feel really bad putting a baby rat into a situation where it can't escape and having the snake simply torment it without finishing the job. I feel bad for the baby snake too, who is apparently too scared to consider eating and also can't escape the situation.

So it goes...

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Originally Posted by kat_black181

If I had to, I'd feed live. But, as long as my girl keeps pounding 'em down like a champ, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. She's a little piggy. Haha

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Well yes with no issues I would as well :)

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Originally Posted by MrLang

I have had an upsetting situation happen recently. A new hatchling that hasn't had its first meal yet is getting defensive and striking quite a bit without latching on and coiling. I feel really bad putting a baby rat into a situation where it can't escape and having the snake simply torment it without finishing the job. I feel bad for the baby snake too, who is apparently too scared to consider eating and also can't escape the situation.

So it goes...

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Have you tried live? It may be only defensive striking because it doesn't realize it as food. My girl did that with f/t. When she struck the live it was sooo different and for keeps!

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It's unfortunate, but with a good feeder, that does happen from time to time. I see it with kingsnakes and/or bullsnakes a lot more often than ball pythons, but sometimes they just get so excited about eating that they forget to finish constricting.

Not much you can really do for the rat, unfortunately, but hey - what a great feeding response on that ball python!

-Jen

That is pretty weird... I have never seen a ball python eat an animal while it is still alive and moving, most of the ones that I have had would absolutely refuse to eat until even I had stopped moving around the room. But some snakes just aren't that picky I suppose.

Yep, I've had it happen a few times. One of the times the female realized just how alive the rat still was (it was no where close to it's last few breaths) so she let go, recoiled, waited for it to die that time, and ate it. I do worry that the rat will injure their mouths/throats, but so far nothing has happened. I also have a couple that will throw coils around the live rats, but not strike. It is weird!

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Originally Posted by Crazymonkee

Have you tried live? It may be only defensive striking because it doesn't realize it as food. My girl did that with f/t. When she struck the live it was sooo different and for keeps!

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This is with live, hence why I feel terrible for the rat.

Dang SG, that sucks man but like Moot said, not much you could of done.

as bad as i felt for the rat, im still happy i have such a good eater. lol