My boy is weird too. He strikes the rat and then needs 20 to 30 minutes to eat it. He sniffs at the rat everywhere and sometimes looks clueless in my direction. In his tube, when he was nearly to big for it he sometimes had no space to eat it, because he strikes near his hide. I then often rearranged the rat for him and he ate it. I wonder how they survive in the wild. When he is a few days before getting blue, he hisses at the rat or strikes it but won't eat it. That's just normal. After his shed he is hungry again.