Hey guys! I'm facing a bit of a quandary here and am not sure what to make of it. My 5-month-old BP Iggy had been feeding on frozen/thawed rat fuzzies every 7 days without issues ... until today, when he's doing something weird. He is readily striking and wrapping with no problem at all ... but then I come back to check on him roughly 30 minutes later, and he's ditched the rat and is roaming around, still in "hunting" mode, clear on the other side of the tub. He did this twice with the first rat I offered him, so, thinking there might be something off about the rat itself (too big and difficult to swallow? too squishy and not fresh enough?), I thawed out a smaller, cleaner-looking one and tried it instead. Same thing - seizes and wraps it promptly, but then drops and completely ignores it after that.

The second time I blow-dried and re-offered this rat, I stuck around to observe what he was doing. After several minutes of constricting the rat, he released it from his mouth, but kept the rest of himself coiled around it. He then just sat with it like that for a while, head lifted up a bit, not really paying attention to the rat he was holding (honestly, he just looked like he was going "did I leave the stove on?"). Then he yawned, presumably to reset his jaw after the strike bite, and sniffed around for a bit, both at the rat and just his general surroundings. However, he never opened his mouth onto the rat at any point, the way he usually would when searching for a starting point to swallow from. He eventually uncoiled completelyCurrently, he's cruising around his tub again, completely ignoring the rat sitting next to him that he just "hunted" down earlier.

What do you guys make of this? There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with his ability to sense the rat's smell or temperature, since he's striking reasonably accurately. It doesn't seem like he's just not hungry, otherwise I don't think he would bother grabbing the rat in the first place. His movements don't look sluggish or abnormal, so he shouldn't be having any trouble orienting himself. I've given up on further feeding attempts for tonight, and will probably try again Monday or Tuesday night, but honestly I'm a little stumped right now.