strange eating habits

[macandchz]

just wanted to know if any of your snakes do strange things with their food? last night mac constricted his mouse, and then curled in a tight ball but didn't eat it. He actually was holding it like a teddy bear or something. this lasted 20 minutes. when i pulled at the mouse, he just squeezed it tighter. all you could see was this curled up ball python with a mouse butt and 2 legs sticking up. finally after 45 minutes, his head went up and the mouse was gone! do your snakes do anything weird with their food?

[SWDK]

Yep, that's perfectly normal. Sometimes my snakes eat quick and other times they seem to take forever to get the process started.

[Albert Clark]

Absolutely have seen this before. Michael Cole from East Coast Reptile Breeders spoke about it in one of his many articles on ball python behavior.

[chairman]

In addition, after having wrapped a rat for "too" long, my pythons will lose interest in it. I'll end up retrieving the rat with tongs and reheating it; then they usually eat.

I have found that getting the python to grab the rat nose first limits this kind of thing. Seems like if they start the swallowing process as part of their strike they just go with it.

This is partially why I hang out with the snakes until the last mouse/rat tail is gone... don't want the snakes missing meals and I definitely don't want a dead animal stinking up the cage overnight.