How can I get him to eat it head first?

[Jamik]

90% of the time my BP eats his rats butt first. How can I get him to swallow them head first? I warm them up head down to hopefully make the head area warmer. Is there anything else I can do, or should I just not worry about it? I know it takes him a lot longer to swallow them butt first, which is what worries me. Thanks!

[ride_gnu]

Oh boy. I have had more problems with this than anything. Having my snake take up to 3 hours to eat a rat. After many posts and trying everything I can I have learnt the following.

1) Doesnt matter how he eats it or how long it takes. If he is in a suitable enviroment to eat just let him be and he WILL figure it out eventually.

2) The only trick that I every found the worked is I feed F/T and it was to hold the rat by the tail for the strike and try to encourage him to strike near the head. Often where my snake bites is where he will try to eat from.

[wolfy-hound]

It shouldn't matter, as long as he eats it, and doesn't regurge, let him eat it however he likes.

[coldroses]

Yes, I have had many problems with getting the snake to find the head. I heat it up thoroughly everytime but sometimes the snake just seems to not see the rat by the time he unravels around it (as if it has already cooled down making it hard to see it). I sometimes have to sneakily snatch the rat back out with tongs (only after ive left it in for 20 mins or so) while the snake seems to forget about the rat under him and tries to go after my hand as if he's ready for me to feed him again (short attention span I guess). It's usually not a problem but I wondered if other people have similar issues...

[blackcrystal22]

It shouldn't be a problem, but if you want to try getting him to eat head-first and your using f/t, make sure to blow-dry and heat the head area of the mouse/rat before you give it to him. This could improve the chances.

[keepzrollin]

today when i fed my snake he took it down butt first i was kinda worried he took a while to get it in his mouth lol. first time this has happen to me

[JKExotics]

Honestly your giving it too much thought, alot of my snakes simply look for the bottom first none had have issues it's just the way they like to eat. There will be no problems coming from this and I to this day don't know of anyway to "train" it to eat differently, honestly thats a good way to get your BP to go on feeding a strike.