frozen thawed.... and he tried butt first but ended up letting go of it when he had just passed the back legs.... so after 4 hours, 5 strikes, 20 constrictions, and countless amounts of swallow attempts he finally got it and only because when he was constricting i lifted up the head by the ear with my tongs he saw the nose and struck it, then he released 5 minutes later and swallowed it..... one heck of a night... if im lucky he'll strike the nose the first time and its no problem, but not tonight. i wonder if its the size of the feeder because this only started happening when i upped the size