Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is it normal for my bull snake not to constrict her food? I'm pretty sure they should constrict, even if it's dead, just cause of snake behavior. I fed her a prekilled small rat, and she didn't even attempt anything. Just smelled it and ate it.

My 08 female bull sometimes eats her rat fuzzys straight from the tongs w/o constricting, so I don't think there's anything to worry about. my 2 cents... Jeff

Thank you, I found out a lot of bulls are like this. It just means she can never be released, which I wasn't planning on anyways.

your snake knows that the food is prekilled. If for any reason you ever had to feed it live mice, you would most likely see it revert to a more violent, more primal reaction. It would strike hard and constrict quickly.

I recently had to get rid of a rat fuzzy. I gave it to my Gopher and suddenly he became a constrictor.
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1.0.0 Great Plains Ratsnake
1.0.0 Corn, Lavender Aztec het for Amel
0.1.0 Black Ratsnake
0.0.1 Texas Rat (tame)
1.0.0 Broad Banded Water Snake, Hypo
1.0.0 Black Bassador Retriever
2.1.0 Godchildren, 1 Evil, 2 possible hets

hey man,this is actually a very common thing with alot of snakes,rat snakes,kings,even my retic doesn't really "wrap em up" anymore.it's almost like they just know.but if have found that if i am feeding with tongs,when they grap it,if you jiggle it a little more,or just give any resistance to letting the pey go, they will throw a loop,aahh i spend waaayy too much time with these critters....i need whiskey.

It varies from snake to snake. If she has been fed pre-killed for a while she may not bother constricting. If you did however offer a live rat I'm sure she would sense it was alive and give you the full strike a constrict reaction . Bullsnakes are like garbage disposals when they reach full size. They can flat out put some rats away.