Odd feeding behavior--sick rat?

[DooLittle]

Do you have pictures of her, and of what you were trying to feed her? Do you have a scale, you could weigh her and then weigh the rat?

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[NormanSnake]

My four month old is barely taking down small mice o.o

[I-KandyReptiles]

My four month old is barely taking down small mice o.o

Balls can take hopper sized mice right out of the egg. Chances are your Bp can eat a bigger meal.

[Parysa]

DrDooLittle I have pictures of her in my gallery, but not of the one I was trying to feed her. The rat was definitely smaller than her girth, though. She's eaten larger without a problem, so I really doubt it was a size issue. I got the smallest one they had without going to a mouse, which is too small for her.
I don't have a scale yet, unfortunately.

[LLLReptile]

You know your snake and you know what it's been eating up to this point - if she's been eating small rats up til now, I'm sure she's fine. For some places, a small rat is really a rat hopper or rat crawler, which can be about the size of a large mouse. She may also be older than 4 months, especially if the breeder was feeding her small rats before you got her.

I've had babies get large enough to eat small rats in their first 4 to 6 months, so it's not entirely unheard of. I also have the option to get very small small rats, so it's easy to bump them up early on.

Snakes can often sense things we can't, and if she didn't want to eat the rat, then she didn't want to eat it. I wouldn't worry too much, just perhaps try offering that rat to the male next week, and offer her a new one instead. It happens sometimes. I have a little long tailed grass lizard I got over a year ago to feed my Indonesian Tree Boas, as they hadn't switched to rodents yet. The boas wouldn't eat her. I figured maybe they didn't like that kind of lizard, and brought home some anoles and a male grass lizard to pair her up with. The boas ate the anoles AND the new male grass lizard, but they didn't touch her. Fast forward 6 months, and I ended up giving the boas to a coworker who is working with them, but I STILL have this female grass lizard that the boas wouldn't eat. I put the grass lizard in with my blue tongues, figuring up until she was eaten, she'd at least enjoy the space.
A week goes by, and she is basking on their heads. Fine, I say, my frilleds will eat her. They've eaten house geckos before when I put them in there for stray cricket control.
No. No they don't. They eat the second male grass lizard I get to pair up with her, and all the house geckos I try keeping in there. But not this one female long tailed grass lizard, who is now fat and sassy and all over that cage. I've given up at this point, she's totally healthy and fine but apparently nothing wants to eat her. She must smell funny or something. I don't know. But now she's got a name (Ingrid the Indestructible) and she's hanging around.

So, long story short, maybe the rat is sick, or maybe your snake can smell or sense something about it that we can't. It's not like our brains work the same as a snake's does, so it's impossible to say for sure. Good luck with the next feeding!

-Jen

[Parysa]

Thanks Jen. And yes, this place's small rats are really small. They're bigger than crawlers, but not by much. I don't think she's older than 4 months because the breeder told me the exact day she hatched and which clutch she was from. He said she was memorable because her entire clutch was super aggressive, but finally chilled out. He did say they were all pretty voracious feeders and I've found that to be true.
Unfortunately, this rat was so injured that he didn't survive, so I don't know if my male would have taken him or not. I did check the female again today when I had her out and she's finally shed, but she has a couple of marks on her side that look like she may have gotten scratched. They're very faint and I only noticed them because she had a tiny bit of stuck shed just on that one spot. So maybe he scared her. I don't know. As long as she eats next time, I'm not going to worry too much about it. I was mainly wondering if anyone had experienced a snake rejecting a rat who turned out to be ill. I do appreciate all of the helpful replies, though!