Problem with ben

[DLinK]

Hey guys... I got a dillemma here... Ben has been on frozen rat pups for 5 feedings now and I was going about his 6th today as normal when he would not finish the mouse. Everything went normally, i dethawed it overnight warmed it up, offered it to him and he struck and coiled right away... But then he would try to eat it sideways and get discuraged and gave up and went into his hide. So I decided to reheat it up and as soon as I got it in there again he struck and coiled like a pro, but still did not swallow it!

I did this a total of 4 times, Im out of ideas. Should I keep trying? He is hungry, because he is biteing it and coiling it every time.

PLEASE HELP

[DLinK]

*sigh* Ok sorry for that freaked out post... That hasn't happened before.

Ok. I just watched him eat 2 of the rats with no problem. It was the 5th and 6th time I offered them to him. The difference was when I did the mousy dance I encouraged him to bite the head by holding it a bit higher. By doing this, when he was done coiling, he was already right on the head with his mouth. Problem solved


Ahhh the wonders of owning a ball

[oorob00]

sounds like you have it figured out. Good job for not giving up.

[mlededee]

snick does the exact same thing. if he doesn't bite the rat close enough to the head he lets go when he is finished constricting amd just pokes and sniffs at it and eventually slithers off and ignores it. he will strike and constrict again if i pick the rat back up and dangle it but still not eat it if he didn't get close enough. i also just try to hold the rat high enough or far enough away that he will strike close to the head on the first try. he eventually eats every time this way. balls are funny little things aren't they?