Question about my first feeding of live rat

[JimJam]

John, thanks so much for your interest!

The snake was under its largest hiding spot, which is a big hollow rock. Temps and humidity have been great. I opened the top of the terrarium and just dropped the rat in. That's what the owner of the pet store recommended. And just let "the snake do her thing." The pet store owner where I just purchased the snake(Skittles) has been feeding her "small rats". It was about 6-7 inches long from nose to tail end, a lot of tail.

Before dropping the rat in though I think I messed up by lifting the rock, and exposed Skittles. I let her know we were there and waiting a second before dropping the rat in. As soon as the rat went in the terrarium it started exploring the edges and corners. The snake seemed completely uninterested and stayed coiled up. The rat, while exploring, even walked over the snake like she was a rock. The snake reacted and put her face right up against the rats face and was flicking her tongue. The rat seemed to bite or snap at the snake's face. I'm not sure whether the rat actually got her, but she's been inspected and no signs of harm can be seen. Then the rat seemed to be "digging" to get under the snake, and I immediately took it out. This was all together about 4 minutes of activity. Again, no sign of damage on the snake, and she didn't seem to be reacting to pain or anything.

I have no idea how well fed or hydrated the rat was.
i would say it was appropriately sized, as far as girth of the snake and rat.
The BRB is about 4.5 ft long.

So long as you're providing an adequate ambient and hot spot there is no need to adjust temps after feeding.


I've never seen a rodent just suddenly start showing aggression towards a snake and I've been feeding live a couple decades. To help me better understand the situation, can you explain the offering in greater detail? Here are a couple questions that pop into my mind.

1) How big is the BRB?
2) What was the size of the rat in relation to the snake?
3) Was the rat hydrated and fed?
4) How did you present the rat to the snake?
5) Where was the snake and what was it doing when you introduced the rat?

The thing about rats, and mice, is they're omnivores - they'll taste just about anything when hungry. Making sure the rodent is properly fed and hydrated is step number one and will give your snake plenty of time to figure out what it wants to do before the rodent forces the issue. Unless the snake is in feed mode and ready to jump on the prey, they're more likely to get defensive or try to flee as soon as that rodent touches it's nose to them. Once that happens, 8 times out of 10, your feed isn't going to be successful. The rare successful feed in this situation happens when the snake strikes defensively and their teeth catch on the prey - this will almost always trigger a wrap simply because they are too vulnerable otherwise, instincts take over.