The hunter lost her way

[MRgrFX]

I've noticed an interesting behavior and was wondering if anyone else had a similar experience.
About 1.5 months ago, I switched from feeding live to frozen/thawed. Made the switch fine, she has never passed on a feeding. Been giving her two rats on feeding day (I ordered a 50 pk of fuzzies that are too small for snake so doubling up) and happily takes them down. Feeding every 5 days. 5 months old.

Although lately it seems like she is drunk when trying to strike the rat. Misses at least twice before making solid contact and wrapping up. Sometimes its not even close, looks like a spasm as if she's super excited to eat. But this missing only started after switching away from live. She always struck and wrapped on the first hit when feeding live. Do snakes lose their killer touch once the prey is pre-killed?

[dr del]

I would heat up the head of the F/T prey a little more.

I may be wrong but I think when their mouth is open their eyes are obscured and they rely on the heat pits to home in on the prey.

Of course some of them do just spring out and wave their open jaws about wildly - I call this the "is the snake keeper paying attention" manoeuvre.

It is responsible for most of the bites I receive while flailing the rat desperately at them and pooping myself.

[rlditmars]

I agree with Dr. Del. When mine miss it is usually the fact that the prey is not hot enough to be a proper target and my hand may be giving of a better heat signature. One other thought, what morph is your BP? Does it by any chance have the Spider gene in it?

[Aryia]

I agree that knowing the morph might help. Some morphs with spider in will be born without a wobble but develop one as they grow.

Is he/she aiming for your hand possibly? One of my babies missed the rat on the tongs (presumably because she aimed further back at my hand instead) and then sank her fangs into my other hand which happened to be holding the lid up =.= Of course she tried to constrict my wrist, no idea if she thought through on how to swallow my hand yet. Anyway I think the problem was that the rat was cooler than my hand, and she aimed for the warmer thing instead.

*Forgot to answer one of your questions. I feed all of my ball pythons frozen/thawed (except for the couple super stubborn ones that won't convert). All of the snakes I raised still constrict and kill their prey (again). I did purchase a larger female who was raised on frozen thawed and she will sometimes wrangle it and other times she will just slither up and eat it. So I guess it depends on the snake. Whenever I tong feed and try to shake the rat a little after they strike to imitate struggling, that way they constrict good for sure : )

[AlexisFitzy]

Try using a hair dryer to heat the head of the rat more. That way they can hone in better. I had a fun feeding experience last week. All my snakes eat f/t and my male Levi has been ravenous lately. He's in a PVC cage so while I was opening the drop down door (I was about a foot away from the cage) He shot out of the cage and grabbed the rat out of the tongs and back into the cage! It was so cool but startling because I wasn't expecting it at all. It was cool seeing how far he could strike

[MRgrFX]

I've been running it under hot water before I present it. Though I would say I lean more on the cooler side to avoid making the rat too hot. I will start using the temp gun to see what the temp is. Been going by feel. It makes sense that she may be drawn toward stronger heat signatures. She usually misses high which is toward the heat lamp and my hand. Using 12" hemostats so I would think my hand is far enough away. My hand stays outside the enclosure. I'll try turning the heat lamp off too during feeding.

She is a Butter Spider morph, so that may have something to do with it. Haven't noticed any serious wobble outside of feeding. Will definitely keep an eye on that though. Was not aware it could develop later.

[Viol8r]

I agree that knowing the morph might help. Some morphs with spider in will be born without a wobble but develop one as they grow.

Or have it and grow out of it....

[Wizard]

With my snakes, I've noticed a few missed strikes even with live prey. And contrary to popular belief, snakes hunt better with with more light than no light.