I'm going to bet she has more going on than sight issues. BP's have rotten eyesight anyway, and my completely eyeless girl Athena doesn't act like this. She will "start" a little when I first touch her, but I always talk to her before I pick her up, and I believe she has come to associate the sound of my voice with handling. My husband tried to pick her up without speaking first, and she "spazed out" enough to spook him until I spoke to her, then she settled right down.
Athena has no issue with striking and coiling prey, although for several weeks after I switched her from mice to rats, she refused to strike at all. Apparently she decided this bigger prey was too dangerous to risk getting her head that close, so she would fling a coil of her body against the rat, slam it into the side of her tub, and crush it there until it stopped moving, then she'd eat it. As she grew, so did her confidence, and now she simply strikes and coils like any other ball. And I've never seen her bite herself.
I have had one or two of mine accidentally bite themselves, but they let go in a hurry and then the rat gets hit extra hard for embarrassing them.
Gale
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