Odd Habit/Feeding Issue

[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.