So this happened

[Dxw425]

So Sonny decided to be a huge pain in the a** yesterday. It had only been 3 days since feeding, and he had recently peed and started aggressively pushing. I think the pushing may be a combination of too small of an enclosure and looking for food. Anyway I walk by while getting ev rything together to clean his enclosure and he rushes the enclosure, so he’s definitely looking for food. I get him out, get his enclosure cleaned and new bedding down, and thaw him a 1lb rabbit, which is about the same size as the rats he gets now thinking maybe the change of prey will last him a couple more days. As I’m getting the rabbit out of the freezer I think it’s odd that he’s hunting but hasn’t taken his dump, usually his pushing is shortly after he defecates but whatever, I ignore it. Fast forward to later that day his rabbit is ready to go so I try and feed him; he is SUPER interested but for whatever reason doesn’t accept the scent of the rabbit so he won’t strike it. I decide to let it sit for a few minutes because that has worked in the past when he decided to be finicky. I come check 15 minutes later and he has sh*t EVERYWHERE. So now I’ve got to retrieve this damned rabbit, and move this ravenous 8.5 foot retic into his cleaning tub and the lean his boaphile again. On top of this he’s in the boaphile with the door that doesn’t help to shield his face at all. It takes a few minutes but once I get him out of food mode he’s pretty tame, take 2 on cleaning. Fast forward again he’s now in his newly scrubbed enclosure waiting on his food. I decided to thaw him the last of the xxl rats, and soaked it with the rabbit to scent the rabbit. I figure he can easily take both, and I don’t want to waste a rabbit. Again he’s super hungry, immediately on the rat, but won’t strike. After a minute or so I realize “silly me, he can’t see his tail because that’s all he attacks lately” so I turn the rat so the tail is visible to him and before I can react he’s latched onto the tail- right where the tongs are. He’s big enough to man handle (snake handle?) the tongs out of my hands at this point (admittedly it’s time for an upgrade) and as he’s ripping them away I can here and feel his teeth grinding against the metal. It sounded like it had to have damaged his teeth but he gave me a super short glimpse when he reset his jaw after he finished the rat. After he finished I got the rabbit, and he went ballistic striking the plexiglass before I could even open it. Got it open and he struck, coiled, and then deserted the rabbit. After 20 minutes of showing no more interest I snuck in and removed it and gave it to my blood. I haven’t seen any signs of broken teeth or facial damage, which I was really worried about with how hard he was striking the plexi and how he snatched the tongs. All in all an epic fail of a feeding day, and pretty frustrating all the way around. I will continue to monitor for damage but hopefully he’s okay. I managed to get one picture and I was concerned about the interior upper layer of teeth (on our left), but as of 12 hours later he seems to be doing fine.