Behavioral question, a little worried

[DreamWarrior]

Hello all. I just got my first BP and have a behavior question. He is an adult male Woma, which I received yesterday. I handled him for about five minutes today after I changed his water. While I was handling him he would hang his head upside down for a bit as he seemed to look around before bringing his head back up to the palm of my hand and turning right side up. I just want to know if it is normal for them move their heads around upside down while handling them, or at any time.

Not only is he my first BP, I had never seen or handled one personally until he arrived. In all of the videos I watched (tons of them), none exhibited this behavior.

[RaskaNeil]

Don't sound unusual to me. My snakes will do just about whatever they want with their heads. Trouser (BP) will lace his head through my fingers for no reason. If someone says otherwise I would listen to them, this board is filled with hundreds of great and experienced owners.

[Montypython696]

Some morphs, like spiders, and womas can have a neurological effect known as head wobble. Some cases are a lot more noticeable than others, and some show no signs of it whatsoever. I have a spider and she has a slight wobble, and she does on occasion move her head in odd angles, and sometimes looks like she's tying herself into a knot. But she eats just fine and doesn't seem to effect her. In my opinion, it just adds to these morphs personalities and adds to their overall quirkiness.

[MisterKyte]

x2 What Monty said. Just neuro weirdness, you don't have to worry much around it. It's not debilitating and it's not painful, they'll eat and poop and sleep and live just as well as any other BP.

[DreamWarrior]

Thanks everyone. I had read about wobble in spiders and womas. Since he is not wobbling I wasn't sure if it was related to the neurological issue or something else. He does move around a quite a bit and is not shy. I feel better and think he will be fine.

[MisterKyte]

Well, all Womas and Spiders carry the wobble, it's linked to the genes and you can't get around it. There is however a good margin of variance in the severity of the wobble from snake to snake, some barely display it and only people who knew what they were looking for would notice and then others shake like a maraca at the slightest movement. So in this case, you can pretty much chalk any weird head movements up to the wobble.

[Archimedes]

I broke down at the word "maraca".

[DreamWarrior]

Well, all Womas and Spiders carry the wobble, it's linked to the genes and you can't get around it. There is however a good margin of variance in the severity of the wobble from snake to snake, some barely display it and only people who knew what they were looking for would notice and then others shake like a maraca at the slightest movement. So in this case, you can pretty much chalk any weird head movements up to the wobble.

It makes sense that there would be a variety of noticeable conditions between each snake. I don't care what he does as long as that just the way he is.