Quote Originally Posted by darkangel
It looks like some idiot left a rat in with the snake for half an hour unattended. I hate that this is how live feeding is represented. I feed almost all live, and even though I only got into the hobby this year, I have yet to have one of my snakes bitten or scratched.
It happens. I was feeding my BP with the same routine I've done several dozen times before. For a few innocuous reasons, Snakey ended up striking in a cross position (like a quickly drawn 'x'). After he bit, he dragged the mouse backwards in order to get enough slack to coil around it. To do this, he had to drag the just-bitten mouse across his mid-section. To make matters worse, he tagged it in the rear which left its head completely unconstrained. I was supervising as I always do and as the mouse was pulled over Snakey's body he bit once. By chance, I had the little paper mouse baggy crumpled in my hand. I was shocked and I immediately swatted at the mouse and caused the two of them to roll over together. Snakey was not phased and continued gaining his hold. As they came to a halt, the mouse tried to bite once more and Snakey tightened up on him. Unfortunately, since the mouse was backwards he just wasn't constrained well at his head. I was terrified and quickly jammed a corner of the bag into the mouse's mouth until it relaxed.

The whole thing happened in no more than 2 seconds and my memory is time-stretched like one of being in a car accident. I almost felt sick as I waited for him to finish. Once it was done I quickly inspected Snakey and there were no signs of injury. I guess his scales did their job!


With regards to the OP: What really amazes me is that snakes don't (or for some reason can't) defend themselves.