hesitant to eat mice

[rivunel]

My male bp, in the past month, has killed every mouse i drop for him but then unattaches his teeth and sniffs the mouse and turns it over for almost ten minutes before finally eating it. I didn't think too much of it until i bought a boa 2 weeks ago and it also does the same thing. could this just mean the live mice I'm getting aren't healthy?I had read somewhere snakes can be reluctant to eat sick mice but i wasn't sure if it was true. The mice are from Petco so it wouldn't surprise me, if they were sick. and could this be a problem?

[Zombie]

My male bp, in the past month, has killed every mouse i drop for him but then unattaches his teeth and sniffs the mouse and turns it over for almost ten minutes before finally eating it. I didn't think too much of it until i bought a boa 2 weeks ago and it also does the same thing. could this just mean the live mice I'm getting aren't healthy?I had read somewhere snakes can be reluctant to eat sick mice but i wasn't sure if it was true. The mice are from Petco so it wouldn't surprise me, if they were sick. and could this be a problem?

Personally I would never buy rodent feeders from PETCO. Only did once about 10 years ago when I was ignorant. My snakes got mites and that was the end of that. I am also an advocate of feeding rats over mice. They are better for the snake. As for their behavior, I have snakes that spend a little extra time before getting on the rat. Sometimes they are just funny

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[jschwe]

A couple of my snakes do that. In my case, it's them looking for the head--they don't do it if they get a good grab on the head right away. My pastel girl is especially bad at finding the head and sometimes even has a couple false starts before she gets it down...

[rivunel]

i've tried switching the male to rats and had no luck and honestly i probably wasn't persistant enough. but petco is my only choice the closest pet store, that sells anything reptile related besides petco, is over an hour away.