Quote Originally Posted by hardball
I just tried to feed my bp for the first time and he had about 30 minutes in there with the mouse but he didnt even pay attention to the mouse. I left the room for a second to look for something to put the mouse into because i was hopeful he would have a successful first feeding and when i returned to take the mouse out it started crawling on my snakes back, which finally got him to strike at it but he missed and had another chance to strike it as the mouse was right in front of him with him in a strike position but he didnt take it and the mouse walked off and he eventually went back into his hide. The mouse rollowed his tail into the hide (almost looked like he took a nibble at it). and the mouse stayed in there for maybe 15-30 seconds and it almost looked like my bp took another little strike because the mouse seemed to make a little jump on his way back out. So i left him in there to see if maybe my guy would come for the kill but he didnt so i waited for him to get out of the entrence way to the hide and put him back into the bag and wrapped him in the pillow case my bp came in. I really dont know what im going to do with a live mouse now because i have nowhere to put it. Is there anything I can do?
This sounds like defensive behavior to me. How long have you had you BP in his enclosure for? A lot of BP's take a while to acclimate to their surroundings, so it might be a whole week or two before they take their first meal for you. Also, what time of day are you feeding them? My year old female displayed the same defensive behavior that your BP seemed to be having, so I waited 24 hours and fed her at a later time at night ( well, really 2:00 am, but it's finals week, what can i say? ). BP's are known to be picky eaters, some more so than others.