fiesty bp

[Griggs2121]

I came home from work today with the intentions of feeding my bp. So I sat around and watched some football as I thawed out the mouse. I invited my friend over to video tape the feeding. When we went in the room I took the top off the cage, and right away she was in an S position. My friend knelt down and started getting ready to video tape with and she stayed in the S and was twitching like she was all ready for a fight. She even struck once as my friend stood up to reposition. I've never seen her all fired up like this without being frightened.

Maybe it was my friend fairly close with the camera. I don't no, but moments later I came in with the mouse at the end of the tongs and she struck and wrapped it up. We sat there for a while as she unwrapped the mouse, and just sat there for like 30 minutes before we got to tired and called it a night.

I felt like she was kinda waiting for us to leave or something.

But I don't really understand this behavior. Its been a week since the last feeding, but the first in a while as she didn't eat for a while. So she didn't know that Sunday night was feeding night.

Any thoughts?

[Adam_Wysocki]

Two thoughts ...

1. If she was refusing food you most likely have some type of husbandry issue to correct .... temps, security, etc.

2. Some ball pythons are just generally "nervous" around smells that they don't recognize (ie. your friend) ... They are more in tune with their surroundings than you can imagine.

-adam

[frankykeno]

One of ours will not eat while being observed in any obvious manner. The BCI we are fostering also will strike and coil his prey but then spends about 10 minutes observing the area before settling in to eat.

I'm not sure but is it perhaps because it must be a very vulnerable time for a snake while it consumes it's prey. After all with a big mouthful of prey it's really not fully able to defend itself or move away quickly from a perceived threat is it? Just a guess on my part really, just kind of makes sense to me. If I'm way off here though, please someone chime in.


~~Jo~~

[Griggs2121]

I only got 4 hours of sleep, but from when I went to to sleep till I woke up and left was about 4-5 hours and she still didn't eat. I get home from class, and the mouse is gone. So she ate. I dunno, she was just worked up for some reason, I don't understand though. Mayber it was the friend getting so close.