ever had a bp just kinda, grab, the rat?

a few times my two ball pythons have just kinda, grabbed the rat from the tongs instead of striking it. They kinda nose at it a bit until they just open their mouth and bite it. sometimes they coil, sometimes i just lower it to the ground because they arent doing anything. kinda amusing to me.

Was wondering if anyone else had the same experiences.

my fire has done that before. Shes a brilliant eater and almost always strikes (almost got me instead last night!) but once she just sniffed upto the mouse opened her mouth and began swallowing it. It was pretty amusing, shes a dope 😂

My lesser eats hella lazy. Just rolls up to it slowly (lazy like, not stalking) and grabs ahold of the rat, drags it around a little bit then starts getting it down. I get a kick out of his nonchalant way of eating :D

When ever I try to show my friends my BPs eating they always just kind of bite without striking, not very exciting. Never fails. My corn will do this all the time though he doesn't have the best feeding response.

sounds like your BP's do this with F/T food. i doubt it would do this with live :mouse2:. would they? :confusd:

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Originally Posted by Ax01

sounds like your BP's do this with F/T food. i doubt it would do this with live :mouse2:. would they? :confusd:

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Mine do it with F/T. I doubt BPs would strike a live rat without coiling because they have to make sure the rat is dead or at least stunned and not moving.

Ye my Pewter bee does this :P Last time he took it from the tongue's cruised around his tub, put the rat down, started eating from the bum... realised he was at the wrong end then it took him 7 minutes to find the head again .... lol

My corn actually sometimes surprises me by striking like she is the most dangerous animal on the world (with her 30 grams) ... but also normally is very polite and just opens her mouth lol

I have one BP who wont take live for this very reason. She will only eat F/T, as long as put it on the ground in front of her. She wont take it from the tongs either. Has to be laying flat. Then she just starts gobbling. It is almost like she has forgotten how to constrict. But at least she eats and is very healthy, that is all that matters.

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Originally Posted by Ax01

sounds like your BP's do this with F/T food. i doubt it would do this with live :mouse2:. would they? :confusd:

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My boa tried to do that once... dumby. Not sure if the rat was so frozen in fear and was just that still or my snake was having a serious lapse in judgement, haha. She found out pretty darn quick that trying to slowly grab a live rat's behind wasn't going to work. This was right after she already ate one rat, so maybe her feeding response wasn't that great anymore. I have started feeding her one rat in a feeding now, if she's going to pull that move, she'll just end up getting bit. Luckily she recovered fast enough that it ended in a tight, happy hug. [emoji14]

My ball has always had a great feeding response, she has always been alert and ready to strike as soon as she smells the rat.

I think it has to do with frozen thawed because I've never had this problem but feed live I have seen it before and I think it has to do with the snake knowing the rats not really alive so he or she figures why use alot of energy when I could just use a little and get a meal anyway

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So after seeing these kinds of posts are we allowed to call snakes smart?

That's funny, my supper cinnamon is the exact opposite with this F/T. He's such an amazing eater and always strikes as soon as he sees the mouse. I wear a pair of rubber gloves when I feed him because even though I'm not afraid of mice touching a dead one kind of grosses me out. When he sees the gloves you can tell he gets super excited he'll come right to me and wait. However once he strikes he will hold on to it anywhere from 10 to the longest of 20 minutes. I suppose he has to make sure the F/T mouse is actually dead... lol

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Originally Posted by BCS

I have one BP who wont take live for this very reason. She will only eat F/T, as long as put it on the ground in front of her. She wont take it from the tongs either. Has to be laying flat. Then she just starts gobbling. It is almost like she has forgotten how to constrict. But at least she eats and is very healthy, that is all that matters.

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This amuses me greatly... LOL. Most of the time, I hear about BP eating problems as refusing F/T.

I have my BPs do it once or twice, and my boa does this once she gets dead prey items without a fight several times. Then I would end up either feeding live or trying to pull the rat away the next time and they go back into battle mode.

On a different note, my psycho pastel will strike at any warm object or movement when he smells a rat, and will chase after his prey items. I'm almost convinced he's a retic hybrid of some sort.

My corn snakes do that more than anything, my other snakes are mostly psychotic when it comes to feeding. Especially my retics and anaconda, they are the craziest.

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i have a couple that strike initially then let go and wander about a bit figuring which way to orientate themselves before slowly approaching and swallowing and i have noticed this is often much quicker than trying to swallow a feed item they may have attacked from the side initially

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Originally Posted by Ax01

sounds like your BP's do this with F/T food. i doubt it would do this with live :mouse2:. would they? :confusd:

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i feed live, and my mojave sulfur has tried that a few times

i'm like "wtf are you doing girl?!? you have to kill it first!":taz:

My guy has done this a few times too, and he does take F/T so I think that has a lot to do with it. Now that he is older he almost always strikes, though there was one time that he very gently took the rat out of my hand. He had been having trouble with positioning and dragged the rat through the water bowl and then through the ecoearth substrate. Needless to say the rat was caked with dirt and he was freaking out over a mouthful of stubstrate. I had taken him out and checked his mouth and rinsed off the rat but was reluctant to put him back in and have him drag this soaking wet rat through more bedding, so I just held it around the middle for him. My hand was literally about an inch and a half behind its head and he just ever so carefully came up to it and slowly opened his mouth and grabbed it by the head and took it from me. It almost seemed like he was being careful because he knew I was there (he nailed it on the first attempt before the bedding fiasco) but realistically he was probably just worn out from all the activity prior to that.

In response to the previous post that mentioned the snake getting excited when the yellow gloves come out, I have noticed this same ability to learn feeding night cues. I always put down a paper plate in the tank to try to minimize him ingesting substrate. He didn't seem to pay any attention to it at first, but these days as soon as that plate goes down he comes out and starts sniffing around it looking for food. I usually take about 15-20 minutes to warm and prep the rat after putting his plate in and he will just sit with his head right in the middle of the plate waiting. I have been pretty amazed by his ability to make those connections. After all, a plate is not something that he would encounter in the wild in search of a meal lol.

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Originally Posted by kiiarah

In response to the previous post that mentioned the snake getting excited when the yellow gloves come out, I have noticed this same ability to learn feeding night cues. I always put down a paper plate in the tank to try to minimize him ingesting substrate. He didn't seem to pay any attention to it at first, but these days as soon as that plate goes down he comes out and starts sniffing around it looking for food. I usually take about 15-20 minutes to warm and prep the rat after putting his plate in and he will just sit with his head right in the middle of the plate waiting. I have been pretty amazed by his ability to make those connections. After all, a plate is not something that he would encounter in the wild in search of a meal lol.

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I actually do something similiar. Before i feed my butter i put down paper towels in her cage so that she wont get substrate in her mouth while eating. She knows that i dont feed her unless thats down, so ive never had any issues of her mistaking my hand for food haha! Just got a new snake and trying the same thing but he likes to hide under the towel which is a pain..