Funny Ball Python Feeding Story

Has your ball python ever struck at the tail and eaten the tail of the rat alone? Lol, because mine has! This is my first BP, had him for a few months, and he struck at the tail and wrapped at nothing. After that he sat there and stared at me while finishing the tail. I offered the rat while he was chewing on the tail, but he just stared and continued gnawing on the tail [emoji23]. Finally, after he finished his stupid tail, he decided to eat the rat. Idk, I just thought it was funny and thought I’d share. Has anyone else had any interesting feeding experiences?


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Well everybody knows that the tail has the most flavor. :D Goofy snake! It's always entertaining when snakes decide to eat rodents backwards. They're not all "fast learners", lol.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Well everybody knows that the tail has the most flavor. :D Goofy snake! It's always entertaining when snakes decide to eat rodents backwards. They're not all "fast learners", lol.

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Yeah half the time my guy eats his backwards. It’s so funny all of the little quirks and differences I notice from him than other snakes. It’s cool how they’re all unique. One good thing is he is a great eater (if he can find the food after striking). He has never gone one rat without striking at it at least, and is yet to miss a meal. It just sometimes takes multiple attempts.


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Perhaps some snakes are here to teach us patience. They certainly do provide some laughs. :snake:

It's not only BPs anyway- I have a corn snake that is a very enthusiastic eater, but if she sees ANY motion outside her tank after she has grabbed her mouse, she drops & ignores it to come after me, or rather my "motion"- that apparently in her snakey-mind might just be a bigger, juicier mouse? But at least once I make my "get-away" she'll go find & eat the mouse she dropped.

I know it's because she doesn't have my scent thru the glass- to most snakes, visual recognition doesn't happen- it's all about motion, which is either predator or prey. Corn snakes don't have heat-sensing pits, so at least that makes them much easier to feed. BPs rely on heat more than scent, so they look pretty goofy when their prey cools off & they can't seem to find it.

Every now & then, I've had a snake grab their prey tail-first, & they hate to let go, much like your BP. But I suppose it's a bit like people that refuse to stop & get directions when they're lost, & just keep going the wrong way. :D (I wonder what snakes would say about us?)

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

It's not only BPs anyway- I have a corn snake that is a very enthusiastic eater, but if she sees ANY motion outside her tank after she has grabbed her mouse, she drops & ignores it to come after me, or rather my "motion"- that apparently in her snakey-mind might just be a bigger, juicier mouse? But at least once I make my "get-away" she'll go find & eat the mouse she dropped.

I know it's because she doesn't have my scent thru the glass- to most snakes, visual recognition doesn't happen- it's all about motion, which is either predator or prey. Corn snakes don't have heat-sensing pits, so at least that makes them much easier to feed. BPs rely on heat more than scent, so they look pretty goofy when their prey cools off & they can't seem to find it.

Every now & then, I've had a snake grab their prey tail-first, & they hate to let go, much like your BP. But I suppose it's a bit like people that refuse to stop & get directions when they're lost, & just keep going the wrong way. :D (I wonder what snakes would say about us?)

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Haha yeah, gotta adapt to each snake. It’s funny tho because he eats from the back so often I thought it was normal to start from the butt. I now realize it’s not… guess it doesn’t matter to him.


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Originally Posted by EthanMG

Haha yeah, gotta adapt to each snake. It’s funny tho because he eats from the back so often I thought it was normal to start from the butt. I now realize it’s not… guess it doesn’t matter to him.


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Maybe your snake is just a 'show-off'? It's harder to eat backwards. The back legs get in the way- they don't fold easily, plus the fur is the wrong direction too. Maybe he'll figure it out eventually. :)

I have had one grab the tail and wrap it before, it was so silly. She ended up eating it from the head that particular time though.

I have a few girls that are notoriously eating backwards and it drives me crazy. Takes them so much longer.

My hognose LOVES eating them sideways!! It takes her absolutely forever to eat. I try to hang on to the butt of the mouse while she swallows to get her to properly orient it, but almost always it fails and she eats it from the middle, folded in half.

Mine grabbed a rat by the foot before of all things. And he must've had a sunken cost moment because he chose to just run with it and continue wrapping despite the fact that he clearly didn't have a good grip since, you know, he grabbed a FOOT. There was also another time where he hit the rat sideways to the point where he didn't even get his teeth in properly so it fell out of his mouth, but he already had momentum so he just, wrapped it while his mouth wasn't even on the rat anymore.

Nature's most fearsome hunter everybody. :rolleyes:

Haha I love this thread! BPs are so derpy :D

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Originally Posted by EthanMG;[URL="tel:2765117"

2765117[/URL]]Has your ball python ever struck at the tail and eaten the tail of the rat alone? Lol, because mine has! This is my first BP, had him for a few months, and he struck at the tail and wrapped at nothing. After that he sat there and stared at me while finishing the tail. I offered the rat while he was chewing on the tail, but he just stared and continued gnawing on the tail [emoji23]. Finally, after he finished his stupid tail, he decided to eat the rat. Idk, I just thought it was funny and thought I’d share. Has anyone else had any interesting feeding experiences?

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Lol maybe he just wanted a rat-flavored noodle? :rofl:

My BP has done plenty of whacky things while eating, including:

• Wrapping the tongs and the rat together - I just left the tongs in the enclosure with him until he finished eating.
• Wrapping the edge of the plate I feed him on along with the rat (I feed on a plate to reduce the chances he will ingest substrate and it makes cleaning easier if the rat bleeds a bit)
• Folding a rat’s nose down to it’s tail and eating it sideways like a taco… this is funny in retrospect but it was a little horrifying to watch because he was so adamant about eating it sideways and I thought there as no way he would get it down. As a result I could also see a round bulge which was the rat’s head on the side of his body when he was done but he digested it just fine and a day later the bulge was gone.
• Following the heat signature of my hand but the smell of the rat… he struck in between my hand and the rat and missed both lol

Lots of funny stories on this thread. Who knows what these snakes are thinking?

My bp has gotten to be pretty good at eating her food headfirst, but she's gotten into the habit lately of dragging it back into her hide to eat in there. The funny thing is, because her hides are a bit too snug to fit both her and her mouse, especially with how they kind of have to stretch out to get it down, by the time she finishes it she's usually reoriented herself so that most of her body except for her head and the mouse are outside the hide anyway. All those theatrics and dragging stuff around after I go to the trouble of laying out a plate for her to eat on, too...:rolleyes:

My hognose can be absolutely hilarious, though. He's an amazing eater, but when he gets into food mode it can take a while to snap him out of it. I usually feed him inside one of his hides that I've turned upside down, just because he prefers being drop fed and he has a bad habit of dragging his food around in the aspen if I feed him anywhere else. When he decides he hasn't had enough to eat, I'll sometimes catch him trying his absolute hardest to eat his hides, and once I found him trying to eat the side of his tank. I guess the hides must retain some smell, but I have no idea what he was thinking trying to eat the wall. You'd think I was starving him, with the way he carries on!

Ha, yes. One of my bigger adults doesn't care what she gets a grip of during feeding time, it's being constricted to death for food!

Here's a recent image (hopefully) of my insta-scam where she can be seen constricting.... the tail :weirdface

I don't like to share feeding images, but this was too good not to!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CUmWaEKM...dium=copy_link

Literally the the first feeding day after I post here praising my bp for finally being pretty good at getting her mouse down headfirst most of the time, we had the worst time tonight getting that thing down! I wound up re-offering it twice because she kept losing it, and I swear she grabbed it by the leg every single time she struck tonight! She kept trying to grab it by the tail and the back legs and dropping it when she realized that wasn't working, then dragged it all around her water dish and all through the cypress mulch before finally finding the head. I just thought it was so funny and ironic that she had so much trouble tonight right after I came in here talking about how well she was doing!

All the while this was going on, my hognose was just watching in the background wondering where his mouse is. He could smell the mouse and doesn't get his for a few days still, so he was just watching us with his mouth wide open, like he was trying to get my attention. Worst peanut gallery ever!

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Originally Posted by arpowell

Literally the the first feeding day after I post here praising my bp for finally being pretty good at getting her mouse down headfirst most of the time, we had the worst time tonight getting that thing down! I wound up re-offering it twice because she kept losing it, and I swear she grabbed it by the leg every single time she struck tonight! She kept trying to grab it by the tail and the back legs and dropping it when she realized that wasn't working, then dragged it all around her water dish and all through the cypress mulch before finally finding the head. I just thought it was so funny and ironic that she had so much trouble tonight right after I came in here talking about how well she was doing!

All the while this was going on, my hognose was just watching in the background wondering where his mouse is. He could smell the mouse and doesn't get his for a few days still, so he was just watching us with his mouth wide open, like he was trying to get my attention. Worst peanut gallery ever!

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:rofl: One step forward, 3 steps back...that's what you get for praising your snake too soon! :rofl:

This is more of a blunder on my part but I learned a lesson tonight. Check if your snake is in shed BEFORE you thaw out a rodent. I opened up and he was in deep blue, eyes completely clouded over and he was unsurprisingly uninterested.

The ginkgo tree in my backyard got some extra fertilizer I guess... :confuzd:

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Originally Posted by Snagrio

This is more of a blunder on my part but I learned a lesson tonight. Check if your snake is in shed BEFORE you thaw out a rodent. I opened up and he was in deep blue, eyes completely clouded over and he was unsurprisingly uninterested.

The ginkgo tree in my backyard got some extra fertilizer I guess... :confuzd:

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I'm sure we've all done that a time or two...oops!

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

I'm sure we've all done that a time or two...oops!

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Yup, I've just done it Sunday when feeding the snakelets. Missed the markers! And when I went to feed on Sunday I thought he looked pretty dark but adnt in blue, and didn't want to stress him out with handling with the scent of prey about, so offered the meal and he took it no problems.

Checking on him this morning, and he's started to shed, but it's scruffy shed :tears: have given him a spray and will monitor throughout the day, but may need some intervention :8: