Seems with ours that most missed more often either when they were eating F/T (which may have been my mistake for not having the prey warm enough to let them zero in on it) or when they were very young snakes and likely not as experienced at hunting prey. Most of them rarely miss now and if they do most will hit again extremely quickly. The only time they seem to totally give up is if they smack their nose on something instead of their prey....that does seem to put them right off the whole thing (well it would put me off too! LOL)