My baby BP went off the deep end last night! He was striking in the enclosure before I had a chance to drop the prey in the enclosure with him! As soon as I lifted the lid off he went nuts. I am concerned that he may have injured his face from striking so hard. What kind of symptoms should I watch for as far as injuries go? He has never acted so aggressive during feeding time before. He has an incredible feeding response.

LOL- congrats in what sounds like an incredible feeding respince indeed! He may have been very hungry that day.

I have had bps strike at their enclosures, as well as strike threw the tubs little opening to the point i thought they ripped part of their mouth off ( they even opened the tubs a bit more by doing this) but i have yet to see any do damage. My first concern would be that they may get teeth stuck in their own lip- heard stories of it. Some fixed it themselves, and i believe one may have needed some assistance. but it all worked out.

When you see them strike the glass, i would watch for the teeth being stuck as i stated before, as well as any neurological issues, but i dont see that happening so easy IMHO, but i wold just check on how the snake is acting a little bit after it happened, and the next few days. Check the jaw area, if the snakes jaw is dislodged for a long priod of time, something may be up. Look for any scrapes or rips in skin, but that too is long shot. Just keep a general look out on th esnake, but the teeth issue would be my only real look out. I have snakes strike my tubs when i walk by, and nothing ever really happened, other than me jumping.

BUT just to give you a word of warning- sometimes snakes hold their mouths funny once they open it ( as in the strike) so you may initially think it may have broken a jaw, but nothing may be wrong. I would wait til the nsake realigns its jaws. Sometimes they wont do it for a while, or with you there. Also, remember if a snake is in feedign mode, it may still do food striking if you try to pick him up and inspect him.

This would be something I would observe the snake with, but I wouldn't get extremely worried. How are you feeding him? Perhaps the snake is ready for next size meals or maybe work on feeding him a little sooner than 7 days. Sometimes my tub strikers just strike anyways whenever they know I am feeding, and some only do it when i am late on feeding and they are very hungry. If this is someting you really want to try to avoid, you can feed slightly smaller meals more often so the snake doesnt get so hungry. But then again, it could have just been a chance occurance.

Sounds like yout snake is gonna keep you on your toes, huh? LOL

I am definitely going to bump up the size of the prey. I think he is ready for weaned rats now. Thank you for your input Janet! I will be checking on his mouth also to make sure that he did not injure it.

you are welcome. highly doubt any damage was done, of all the times this happened here, no damage was ever done. But its best to just make sure. Good luck!

Most the time they wont injure anything striking the tubs. If upping the food size dont stop it, may be something in the cage or smell pissing him off.

My bp took his first small f/t rat on Sunday and is now resting comfortably in his warm hide. I guess bumping up the prey size was all that was needed to chill out his aggression. I was going to go with weaned rats but they looked to small so I just got some small rats instead.