So my BP and I have a little feeding dance.

I dangle the f/t mouse and place a paper towel down over the substrate and leave the mouse on the paper towel to be devoured. I try to coax her out of the hide with the mouse but usually there is little interest at first so I leave the mouse on the paper towel for her to eat when she gets around to it. Tonight when I reached for the paper towel she struck out and coiled up around the tongs and constricted like I've never seen. I was one proud papa!

In the course of killing the dead mouse she broke it open and some of the aspen was also eaten. I pulled off almost all of it with the tongs before she gulped it down but I am pretty sure some of it was swallowed. Should I be worried at all? I have read conflicting things trying to find the answer. Hopefully someone in the know can put me at ease.

On a related note...

I bought her at a chain petstore and it was very difficult to get her to start eating for me. She fasted for weeks and I was getting pretty worried. The reason I mention the type of store was that I know a lot of first time snake owners go this route and the husbandry practices are sometimes questionable in these types of stores. Last time I was in that store I paid closer attention to the heat and humidity as well as the tank "furniture".

The temps were in the high 70's according to the analog thermometer they had in the tank and there was no hygrometer. The hide was a large half log with about six BP's curled up on top of each other.

Is it possible that these conditions tricked my snake into thinking it was winter and caused her to not want food? I ask because we just had a week long heat wave and this was the best feeding response I have had yet. Keeping the cool side cool has been a challenge this week to say the least.

Thanks in advance.