Well I tried a fresh kill tonight and got the same reaction. When I brought the rat home I had to go pick one of my kids up from practice so i put the box with the rat inside of the tank, on the opposite had that the BP was in. Only reason I did this was in-case it happened to escape the flimsy cardboard box it would be in the enclosure and not loose in the house. When I came home 10-15 minutes later the BP was curled up on top of the box with the rat snooping a round, the smell of the rat definitely had his attention. I removed the box and rat and quickly incapacitated it, snapping its neck. By the time I came back in the room the BP had gone back into its hide since I disturbed it from the top of the box. As soon as I lowered the rat in with the tongs the BP came out in a strike pose and followed every movement of the dead rat. Never did strike at it. I tried moving it slow, moving it around a little faster etc. Each time he would spend several minutes following it's every movement and then it would retreat back into the hide. As soon as I would move it near the opening of the hide he would come right back out, get nose to nose with the rat like he was wanting to strike but then would retreat back. After enough time went by with me trying this I heated it back up with my CHE. I decided to try that instead of the hair dryer in case the hair dryer was putting a foreign smell on it. Each time I would heat it up he would instantly come out of the hide stay face to face but never did strike. When I was feeding it live it would strike very quickly so I honestly expected it to go after this very fresh kill right away but no such luck.