Crazy feeding response!

[marvelfreak]

My BRB bite it's self. I thaw my rats in the microwave instead of hot water. Then once thawed i warm them up with hot water. Well it must have made them smell better or something, because i had a very interesting feed session. They were all striking machines.

First my BRB strikes misses the lid i set it rats on. Gets a moth full of wood chip. He trying to get them out so i pick him up and set him in his water bowl. It works the water washes the chips out of his mouth. Why still wrap to my hand he strike at me bites his own neck and starts to wrap and falls in to the water bowl. While trying to kill himself starts to drown. I pull him out of the water after about 10 second his ok and strikes the mouse finally.

Next my Diamond x Jungle Carpet is always in his hide when i feed. So i wasn't paying attention. I open the cage door and Bam he took it right out of my hand. Shot out almost a foot an half out of the cage. He was up on the perch with his tail wrapped around it. If he hadn't he would have landed on the floor. his face and the rat slam into the cage below. has he wrapped more i lefted him back into the cage.

Next was my Bredli Carpet he struck at the rat before i got the door open getting a face full of glass. lol

The other 3 ate just fine. That got me thinking. We need a thread where people can tell their stories about crazy feed response. So lets hear some of your feeding story.

[Will0W783]

My 8ft+ SD retic baby bit the carpet the last feeding day. I know she has a wicked feeding response- she's normally a sweetie, but when there's food smell in the air, be careful- so I had the rat hanging in front of her door where I figured she couldn't miss it. As soon as I dropped the door she flew out, shot past the rat, and slammed face first into the carpeted floor. She bit down and started wrapping around herself, trying to coil the carpet! lol. I had to get my fiance to come up and help me pry her mouth off the floor. Other times she has nailed the radiator, cages across the room, and the bucket the rats were thawing in. She's nuts.

[shaunyboy]

crazy stuff chuck

my jags like that

any time other than feeding he's a big softy and i swear he has a sense of humor

if he smells food getting heated up he goes crazy.i have to feed him first or he

strikes the glass everytime i walk by
strikes his ceramic bulb heat guard
shadows on the tank walls

then by the time i offer him the food he's in that much of a frenzy that he misses a few times.once he even fell out his tank,i had to drop the rat on the floor for him.

he is by far my best and craziest feeding response

the rest well they're just your usuall hard hitting accurate carpets

i do have a jungle jag that constricts her rat for anything up to 2 hours before eating.she was a slow starter and it took me 6 month to get her feeding.she's quite a nervous snake so i'm thinking she's a bit paranoid that she's going to get bite of a food item.so she makes damn sure they're dead.

JUST GOTTA LOVE CARPETS.....!!!

cheers shaun

[stlphotogal]

My husband and I were actually wondering about the feeding response we get from our BP - we heat our f/t rats in warm water (in a plastic bag so they don't get soggy) and then blast with a hair dryer to get the heat signature nice and hot for our guy. We heat in the hallway outside the room with the BP and open the door - I am never sure if it is the noise of the hair dryer or the scent of the heating rat but as soon as we turn on the hair dryer our guy is out of his hide and ready to eat. I assume its the scent (although it happens pretty quickly and I can't imagine the scent being that strong for just heating n water)...so do you think it could be a learned response from the hair dryer noise or just the smell?

[infernalis]

Originally Posted by stlphotogal

...so do you think it could be a learned response from the hair dryer noise or just the smell?

I would be more inclined to lean to smell.

Snakes have very limited hearing ability, and the high pitch whine of a hair dryer is well above any auditory response.

Snakes in general can detect footsteps, low level bass notes and nothing above a few hertz in frequency (Like a hair dryer, unless you were using it right on the snakes enclosure so the vibrations can pass through the enclosure)

I have some feeding stories... I'll post a few soon.

[Freebody]

hehe i got a retic, enouph said about her, sound pretty close to what willow said, shes nutty, well actualy shes so fast and accurate i almost had he catch her food like a dog grabs a ball, as i towards a rat to her one day, i meant to just toss it in to the back of the cage and she made a huge strike and got it as the same time it hit the floor, didn't even get a bounce or a slide , i mean miliseconds faster and she would have grabed it mid air, i have tried a few times more and repeated it but shes yet to catch it.yet... this week i was feeding my jag and the bredle in the cage beside him was waiting paciently with her face agianst the glass for her turn, so i to drop the rat in from the top of the cage and i try to keep the door closed best i can and get the rat ino her cage, well the rats soaked with water from thawing and drips on her head shes starts striking at the water droplets like 4-5 times as they drip,then she just looks streight up at me mouth stretched open wide and just lets the water drip into her mouth and i lower the rat at the same time into her mouth and she grabbed it lol if was pretty funny and cool to see. better than anytime i seen them yahn for a sec or 2 this was about 5-7 seconds

[Will0W783]

Cool, Freebody! I have a leucistic Texas rat snake that is like that. As soon as I open her cage to feed her, she runs around with her mouth wide open waiting to "run into" the prey. I have to chase her around because she's cruising so fast..lol, sometimes for up to 10-5 seconds before she "finds" it. It's always good for a few chuckles. And my bull snake grabs his prey and hisses and rattles his tail while he eats.

[gonesnakee]

Nothing beats an Indigo or a Cribo when it comes to feeding.
They are grab & smash predators & hit the prey like a freight train & run with it smashing it off of everything they encounter as they stuff it down their throats as fast as they can.
Either can eat a rat that could take a Carpet 10-30 minutes in less than 2 minutes.
My buddies Cribo used to take prey tossed at it out of mid air.
My adult male Indigo flies right out of his enclosure onto the floor with it more often than not.
They do not grab it & pull it back to themselves, they do not coil it, they do an open mouth lunge & "run" with it until they hit a wall.
My male will run his open mouth from end to end on the glass of his enclosure wating for me to open it a just enough to fit the prey in & like I said more often than not right onto the floor with it smashing it everywhere LOL Mark
P.S. Florida Kings are pretty agreesive eaters as well & will fly right out of their bins at prey, triple coiling it in mid air on their way to the floor & of course California Kings are famous for their feeding responses & will try to eat & sometimes eat almost anything including themselves, I'll find some pics

[gonesnakee]

One trying to eat herself:



One trying to eat me:



Another old one of one trying to eat me:



A couple of one trying to eat her mate:

[gonesnakee]

Trying eat to the roll of papertowels:

[gonesnakee]

Pics of some rough mating, not trying to eat one another, just him holding her still, Mark

[marvelfreak]

OMG Mark ROFL. So do you taste like rat,chicken, or fish? If only your snakes could talk. lol I seen a pic on another forum of a kingsnake that had eaten half it body and was still going.

[gonesnakee]

Originally Posted by marvelfreak

OMG Mark ROFL. So do you taste like rat,chicken, or fish? If only your snakes could talk. lol I seen a pic on another forum of a kingsnake that had eaten half it body and was still going.

If they get themselves by the tail you quite often have to force them to stop as their food response is really that strong, silly snakes, Mark
P.S. its moving, its flesh, its warm, it must be food right?

[marvelfreak]

Originally Posted by gonesnakee

P.S. its moving, its flesh, its warm, it must be food right?

So very true. Had a ball python named bulleyes for a reason. I use to feed him in a plastic bucket sitting on the floor. He shot up almost 3 feet in to the air and grab it right out of my hand and fell on the floor. He actaully caught 3 rat in mid air over the two years i had him.

Had a baby retic shoot out of his cage missed the rat fuzzy, but nail me in the nose. Held on for about 2 seconds then let go.

[gonesnakee]

More "Love" bites, Mark