Newish behavior

[wickedpix]

So I noticed as my boy gets bigger/older he seems to be getting more feisty. He gets a little strike happy after feeding which is understandable to me, and he's left alone for at least 24hrs after eating. But when I've gotten him out he's started with some small almost nips toward me. Which he's not done before. I'm not sure if it is because I havent handled him as much lately but it hasn't been a very long time. I just wondered if there were any suggestions, or if I just have a nippy little guy. Seems to make my husband a little nervous for me, so I promised id ask people with more experience

[BrandyL1193]

Maybe he needs a little longer to digest his food if he is eating larger prey?

[wickedpix]

This is usually 2-3 days after he eats, when I first take him out. I need to find a scale somewhere to weigh him, since he's still eating mice. He was eating two for a few weeks but he's back to only eating one and refusing the second. The rats where I get his food are large and I can't find anywhere with smaller ones for him unfortunately, but he is a good eater on the mice. I'm just not sure if he's still hungry or if he's just being a teenager

[vangarret2000]

Depending on the age/size of your snake you could feed it a large rat. If it's a full grown adult it should be able to handle a large rat. All you do is just feed less often if you do so.


This could be a bit of him just not wanting him to be held so he is defending himself. Snakes are a living thing and can change behaviors.

How do you react when he bites you? Do you keep holding him or put him back? If you put him back too soon this would teach him that a bite on you lests him get left alone so he would learn to keep doing it if he wanted to be left alone.

I would treat it like you would any snake that has a biting problem and eventually he would grow out of it.

I doubt that not handling him regular would be the cause. This can be for some snakes but generally doesn't fit into bps because of their normal friendly behavior. That being said, it could be the cause, I just doubt it would be. How often do you hold him nowadays? Even if it's only once every week or two for just a couple minutes I find that keeps my species that can sometimes turn nasty with less handling at bay.

[wickedpix]

I was trying to go by the feed a prey item as big around as his biggest area and the rats are still bigger than that. I got him in March and he was born in about Sept/Oct of last year, so he's still not completely full grown as far as I can tell. I can post some pictures later with some references.

And I usually leave him be for a few minutes after he gets a little snappy, but I don't put him away, just keep my hands out of biting radius. He's only actually tagged me once, and barely at that. I only had a little pinhole of a scratch. He usually calms down after a few minute and explores a little and is fine after that. He's the first snake I've had though, so I've not dealt with the issue before. I've only ever had cats, and they only get grumpy when I cut their nails lol. And I usually try to get him out every few days for about 20-30minutes depending on what I'm doing. Sometimes he stays out longer, falling asleep on my lap while i'm reading a book or playing video games. As far as I can tell, maybe it's just growing pains since he's still growing.

[wickedpix]

So here's a few recent pics of my Squish. The best thing I could find for comparison was my remote lol. I was going to move him to rats when he was waiting two mice consistently but he did for a few weeks, then he went back to one for a few, and this week he refused since hes in blue. Is he at a size where I should switch him over? All the rats seem huge compared to his mouth but hes my first noodle so I'm a n00b. You seem like the most experienced people to ask

[wickedpix]

I finally got a scale! The squish monster is clocking in at 384g.