eating mouse tail first

Hey guys,

So i got a normal male on Friday only a few months old. The lady at the store said that she was having trouble getting him to eat. Said she tried everything but assist feeding. I thought about it and got him anyways. I left him alone in his pen for a few days. Yesterday i tried feeding him a fuzzy and was getting a good feeding resp once from him but he would shy away from it. In an effort to try i left the mouse in his pen outside his hide box. After about 30 Minutes i checked and he was swallowing the mouse tail first. anybody here have an experience similar to this?? Any negatives come about from this behavior??

Mine eat it from the tail first sometimes. Maybe he struck it from the back and couldn't find the head. Usually when mine eat it from the back it's time to move up in size on rats though.

Maybe he never got the "head first" memo?

Never had a problem from any of mine doing this when it happens. And I would suggest trying to get it switched over to appropiatly sized rats a.s.a.p. It may just want a larger prey item.

For his size a fuzzy is a good sized meal for him. I will look into the rats for this weekends feeding

If he's a few months old, fuzzy is too small, or he's been underfed for a while.

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Yea the store said they couldn't get him to eat. I don't want to over feed and stress him out but i wanna get him up to weight.

All snakes feed differently. My snake has never struck a mouse other than right on the nose every single time. As long as hes not having difficulty swallowing it backwards then everything is fine.

Yea he seemed to have gotten it down alright, it was just strange to see Lol . My female will mess with a mouse for a few minutes looking for the head before eating and he just didn't seem to care. I'll keep an eye on him next feeding to see what he does.

They do eat things weird from time to time, it's nothing to worry about. :)

Now that he is eating, the next meal should be okay to be a normal sized prey item. I think what other posters were trying to point out was that it is more common for a ball python to refuse to eat a meal that is too small than they are to keep rejecting an appropriate sized meal. It may be that the lady was offering him meals that were too small for quite some time.

-Jen

My guy on occasion would eat tail first.. But lately,no matter where he has the mouse from,he always releases it and makes sure he starts from the head,guess he is learning himself. He also is a baby,about 3 months old.. He is pretty smart,Sweet and eats like a pig

My young (2 mo.) female bp has taken 2 of her last 3 meals from the back, I think purely because she hits it wrong initially--like in the middle of the rat--and doesn't know enough to adjust. It's also probably my fault more than anything, as that only happens when I accidentally drop the rat and she grabs it before I can pick it back up and offer it properly.

Doesn't seem to have caused any ill effect. At least rats don't have scales that would injure her to go backwards.

just an update here, last weekend he ate without much problems, head first and all. last night he took about 30 minutes to eat. he was just laying on the mouse and pushing it around. he has never constricted a mouse since ive had him just picked it up and swallowed it. last night he had it near the head but dropped it and ate it tail first again. he looks really unsure to what hes doing.

Males enjoy a little tail!

He's learning. As babies even though they are snakes they have to learn. My girl as a baby would eat every other prey by the tail. She would even sling it against the sides of her feeding tub. Don't ask me why. She hasn't done either of those things since she was about 8 months old and I got her on hopper rats. She evidently just liked to play with her food a bit. I JUST got her back from people that weren't caring for her properly and have to start getting her back up to a proper food size. So yeah he's just learning and will get it eventually. Ive seen some adults that still ate tail first at 5 yrs.