Quote Originally Posted by NightLad View Post
Question 1: How long does it generally take for a BP to strike, coil and kill a rat before swallowing?
Really depends on the snake, it's confidence in hunting, etc. Too many variables to give you an across the board answer. Usually mine no matter what age, hit very quickly, constrict very efficiently once they are used to a certain prey and if left undisturbed immediately slurp down their dinner.

Question 2: If the BP has the rat's head mostly in his mouth while coiling, and it is still alive enough to squeak and squirm, can the rat bite or hurt the snake's mouth, tongue, etc?

PS: Salzedo is 2 1/2 m/o, and the rat was a fuzzy.
Snakes seem to hit the head or the neck area just back of the head of their prey most often (pretty much the hold you are describing). It may be due to the higher heat signature the head gives out, it's likely a grab that ensures them the highest safety factor as they are either stunning the prey a bit or at least controlling the end with the teeth kind of thing. Whatever the actual mechanics of it, nature pretty much designed them this way and it seems to work out all in all.

You're snake sounds like it did just fine. A fuzzy rat has no real teeth erupting yet so isn't any major danger to your snake. Most of ours, from the little 07's to the big adult females learn to handle their prey easily with time and it's rare for me to hear much squeaking from the prey.

Just stay to appropriate prey sizes, feed in a consistent manner that this specific snake is used to dealing with and it will likely be just fine. I wouldn't switch up prey types or feeding methods if you can absolutely avoid it, that tends to throw ball pythons off a good, regular feeding schedule.