Odd Habit/Feeding Issue

[BornToHerp]

I recently bought a subadult toffino male. I've had him for a few weeks and every time I offer him a rat pup, he immediately strikes at it, coils, and kills it. However, no matter how long I leave the dead rodent in there he won't eat it. Has anyone else ever had this happen? The breeder I bought it from said it never acted like that with him. Thx in advance.

[KMG]

Was the breeder feeding rat pups or mice?

[stickyalvinroll]

Is this only one time or since you've gotten him?

[BornToHerp]

The breeder was feeding him live rat pups. Just in case a threw in a mouse and he did the same thing. He has never eaten for me yet, he just chokes the rodent out.

[JodanOrNoDan]

I have had this happen. About 50% of the time you can "re-animate" the rat and they will take it on the second shot. If not, the animal is just not hungry. The times I have seen it it it usually pre-shed. It is my belief they they may be killing the prey as a defensive action.

[JoshSloane]

I see this all the time. Oddly enough it is my retic male who does this to me. I have a thread about this in the giant python category. My male retic sometimes has to strike and coil 3 times before he actually eats it. Just keep trying and you will be fine.

[JoshSloane]

I have had this happen. About 50% of the time you can "re-animate" the rat and they will take it on the second shot. If not, the animal is just not hungry. The times I have seen it it it usually pre-shed. It is my belief they they may be killing the prey as a defensive action.

Constrictors arent known to coil and kill as a defensive action. Snakes will strike, hiss and even roll in a defensive manner, but constricting as a part of a defensive strategy is purely fiction from hollywood. If you think about it from an evolutionary sense it doesnt make sense to employ constriction as a defense. Constriction brings you into extremely close contact with an animal that could potentially kill the snake, or even at the very least leave wounds. Defensive snakes want to either scare their prey away with a strike, or depart the situation. From what I have seen, striking in itself is more a byproduct of being housed in a confined enclosure. In nature, the vast majority of the time a snake is threatened they will retreat.

[JodanOrNoDan]

Constrictors arent known to coil and kill as a defensive action. Snakes will strike, hiss and even roll in a defensive manner, but constricting as a part of a defensive strategy is purely fiction from hollywood. If you think about it from an evolutionary sense it doesnt make sense to employ constriction as a defense. Constriction brings you into extremely close contact with an animal that could potentially kill the snake, or even at the very least leave wounds. Defensive snakes want to either scare their prey away with a strike, or depart the situation. From what I have seen, striking in itself is more a byproduct of being housed in a confined enclosure. In nature, the vast majority of the time a snake is threatened they will retreat.

Speaking as a hunter I am going say that you may be shocked what a primarily flight animal will do when cornered. Given a choice will a ball python fight? In my experience no. It will attempt to escape or ball up most of the time. If the animal has no place to escape to my bet is that some will choose to fight. The two males I have that have exhibited this behavior will usually defensively strike first. If I insist that they are hungry they will strike coil and drop the prey. If I try again they may or may not eat it. I have never had a female exhibit this behavior. My bet without any data at this point would be a female on her eggs would strike and kill a rodent, possibly not eating it. I don't think I would want to risk any of my eggs to try that experiment though.

I will except that my theory or observations could be wrong and gladly invite any data or discussion, but anything I am saying is from personal observation of my not small collection of snakes. I am an ex-soldier, a practicing martial artist and a grandfather. Believe me when I say I have enough life experience to differentiate between Hollywood and reality. I say these things solely to have a better conversation. Personally, I would rather be called an idiot rather than it be said I am basing my opinions on some movie titled something like "Giant Pythons at the Prom".

[JoshSloane]

Im not trying to bash you personally at all. I have the utmost respect for soldiers, and was not at all attempting to denigrate you. I have been hunting as well, and agree that cornered, hurt or scared animals will definitely fight. But there is a big difference between fighting and constriction.

From my own experiences I have seen snakes become spooked and scared of a rodent, both live and frozen. Once scared, they lash out and strike the rodent, attempt to flee, but have never constricted it once they are frightened. I believe the feeding response (strike, constrict, eat) is generated in a much different way than an aggression based or defensive type behavior is. From my view, why spend the intense amount of energy striking, constricting and killing something when the animal wasnt planning on eating it?

[JodanOrNoDan]

No offence taken. You often have good posts on here so I respect your opinion. My post was a kind of "neither one one of us are idiots so let's have a serious discussion" post. Most of my original comment was an attempt to help the OP but I knew someone would bite on the "defensive action" part of my post.

Your points are sound and logical and apply to 99% of my feedings. I do not know how they marry up to the observations I have mentioned though. What appears to be a defensive strike followed by another strike, a constriction, then a drop and leave it while not even looking like they want to eat.

Like I said, I may be incorrectly interpreting my observations but they have definitely happened. My fascination with these animals revolves around the genetics and observing behaviors. I spend a lot of time just watching my animals and recording the things they do. Even with the number of animals I have it can be very possible to arrive at incorrect conclusions though. For example, I have five adult animals with Pastel in them. None of them are closely related. Only one of the Pastels is enjoyable to handle. The other four want to be any place other than around my neck. All of my BEL complex stuff is a joy to handle. I could conclude that all BEL complex animals handle well and Pastels are a pain in the butt but I know that this statement is most likely incorrect. It is just the data that I have gathered.