Had an interesting day today with my BP.

As I was coming home from work today I stopped in and bought some food for the snakes. When I work out of town I stop on my way back because the closest place for mice/rats is about a 30 minute drive otherwise. Knowing that it wasn't time to feed Thor until Thursday I bought a mouse anyway because keeping 1 isn't a problem.

So I come home with the mouse in a box that's in a tied plastic bag and within a second or two Thor is out of his hide and smelling around the holes in his viv as it was obvious to me he could easily smell it even after being in the room for mere seconds. I thought, well, maybe he is hungry, I'll attempt a quick feed and if he doesn't strike right away I'll just try again later. So I place the box with the mouse in it on top of his viv and by now he is really moving around and active, again telling me that this guy is hungry!

Well, I take the box off of the top of his viv and begin to take his lid off, with him staring directly up patiently awaiting. I take the lid off and he opens his mouth and begins to strike but only moves 1-2 inches as I believe he then realized that I wasn't the mouse. He pulls back in the viv and stares at me as if to say, "Sorry, I thought you were a mouse". I put the mouse in and boom, strike right away and no problem eating the mouse. Problem is the mouse was smaller than usual (another problem living in my area, limited supply mixed with inconsistent size of prey).Soon after eating he continued to look up at the lid of his viv and has kept that pose on and off during the day/evening telling me (or I think he is telling me) that hey I'm still hungry. At this point I begin to think that the lid may still smell like mice so I take it off and clean it up, however, he has still spent much time in his hunting pose.

Long story short (for those skim reading ) 2 issues arose today...

1. No more pre-scenting by placing the rodent (in box) on top of the viv as I believe he smelled the mouse and when I took the lid off he saw my heat and began to strike (luckily I believe he realized it wasn't a mouse) but quickly pulled back.

2. I need to keep a closer eye on the size of the mice I receive as from what I can tell the guy is still hungry. He was last fed on Thursday with a 25-30g mouse (he is 225ish) which I thought was a decent sized meal. The mouse toady was likely 15-20g. Should I try small rats or should I begin trying 2 mice? He looked more than willing after eating 1 that he'd like to have another...