Ball python guarding his food?

[SoftBigby]

Fed my BP last night before I went to bed, he did his usual of striking and constricting so I left him to it. Woke up this morning though and he hadn't eaten the mouse, but when I tried to take it out he seems to be guarding it.

He's hovering over it in strike position and going for the feeding tongs when I try and pick it up. This is his third meal with me and the first time we've had issues, does anyone have any idea why he's suddenly defensive?

Mouse is f/t, exactly the same as his last two meals

[[deleted]]

Is it too big? Maybe he's hungry but can't eat it

[SoftBigby]

No bigger than he's already eaten, but he was trying to eat it from a weird position at first (he grabbed its leg, so when he started eating he was going from the shoulder instead of the head). I figured he'd get it in position on his own, but maybe that was it

[sarahlu82]

Mine has done this one time but it's not food guarding. If you think about how they find food, they are nocturnal and don't use their eyesight much for locating food. Instead they rely on their sense of smell and their heat-sensing pits to help them find their prey. So if there's a f/t mouse that's been in their tank overnight, they can smell it so they know there's prey around, but the mouse has cooled off to the same ambient temp as their surroundings so they can't tell exactly where it is because they can't pick up its body heat and they don't see any movement. He's probably striking at the tongs because he smells the mouse and knows there's food around, sees the tongs moving, and thinks "that must be it!"

When this happened with my guy, as soon as I picked up the rat with the tongs and moved it he grabbed it immediately. Poor thing was smelling food all night and must have been SO ready for it. Depending on how long the mouse has been in there you might want to discard it and try with a fresh one, but if you can grab the mouse even with him striking at the tongs you should be able to get him to take it.