Originally Posted by pretends2bnormal
From my research on bloods through some other groups & breeders of them, it is actually very common for bloods to only take drop feeding and refuse to strike or tong feed. Despite the reputation for being aggressive or mean, they're even shyer than ball pythons and just you being within smelling range is enough to put some off of eating or striking, especially juveniles (and a juvenile that gets used to drop feeding tends fo continue preferring that as an adult)
The mellow bloods that don't bite at people seem to be the least likely to strike feed and prefer to just approach a dead rat or mouse and start eating.
If I had to guess, their large size relative to not especially frequent meals as an adult in the wild hard coded them more genetically to expend as little effort as possible to eat; it seems like once they realize prey is dead and will eventually show up, they'd rather just wait and eat when it arrives already dead.
I'm not an expert, having only 1 juvenile blood, but if there is no weight loss and the snake is eating, even if not by striking at prey, it seems pretty unlikely that there would be a problem. My guy is 50/50 on striking prey and won't do it at all if the prey isn't warm (warmer than the BPs want it even), but will eat it fairly quickly on days he won't strike if I leave it near the hide and walk away.
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^^ My experience exactly. Good to know that I'm not the only one.
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