Dealing with a biter

[mikedahitman87]

I love my female pastel, but she is a feisty little girl. She has an excellent feeding response and her prey usually last less than 30 seconds. This made it really easy to switch her to F/T. However, her aggressiveness can be a problem when I need to remove her from her tank (a lovely RBI cage) to change substrate. She is on kraft paper which means it needs to be changed at least once a week because she poops every week.

Question: Anybody have any techniques for dealing with a biter?

Thanks,
Mike

[MiniJ83]

If you have something you can lightly tap her on the face with, this will usually kill their biting response. Whenever I see one of my balls coiled up in that little "S", and looks like shes gonna strike...I just lightly touch her head with a piece of newspaper or something close at hand. Usually does the trick.

[frankykeno]

Mike, just set up simple routines and habits with her. Don't let her attitude be the defining thing or set the tone for how you interact with her. Find something, whether that's a tap on the nose or a spritz of cool water, that sets her back long enough to get a good hold of her then just go for it. Keep her under control until she gets it through her small snake brain that acting up isn't getting the desired results. Just be calm, controlled, firm but gentle and most of all very consistent with her. Small routines done over and over with these snakes seem to help them understand that when A happens then B will occur next and they aren't going to be harmed or preyed upon. Once they get this, most do seem to calm down and stop being as defensive.

If she's being a real turd about stuff, put on some gloves but just don't let her get into the habit of running the show by snapping at you. Some of them are snappy but most ball pythons are pretty laid back. They are snakes though and will school you occasionally. We have a breeder female here that tends to be a snake that will "remind" you if you aren't mindful of her and she nailed my husband last week but good. Nothing different, nothing new, nothing to really trigger a bite but she did it anyways - it happens - you clean up the blood drops and move on.

[edie]

I always use my snake hook when getting my pythons/boas out of their cages (doors open on the front - not on top so I can't get above them to grab their bodies). The hook works well just to see how they're feeling and what kind of mood they're in - I pull them out of the cage a little than grab them with my hand and they're usually fine when out of the cage - they just have a crazy feeding response and think every time I open the cage they're going to get food, once the hook goes in they kind of figure it out though - and I only use the hook when I'm taking them out, never on feeding days, just to keep some repetition.

I had a corn snake that was a real big bitter when in the cage (another snake with a great feeding response, he was a little too excited for food!). He was in a glass terrarium where the top opened up, so I would take the top off and all the hides out of his cage - then place a shirt over him (covering the face) and pick him up. A friend who worked at a reptile store showed me this and it actually worked perfectly, once under the shirt the snake didn't move - once out of the cage the snake never tried to bite - this may not be a good idea for a ball python though!

[starmom]

Hey Edie~ I do it just the opposite!! I always stick my hands in the cages of my boas so that they get used to that intrusion on their space. I stick my hands in for cleaning, water changes, getting the moss out to dampen it, and for getting them out of their environment.
Conversely, I only and always use hemostats to feed them. The see that long shiny object coming at them with a great heat signature and fur and WHAM!!!!
Happy snakes!!!
For ball pythons, as well as one boa, I tap them on the head when they are posturing and before they have tried to tag. Tapping them on the head stops their posturing immediately and that's when I scoop them up. I also don't ever put them back into their environments until they are calm and chill; I don't want them associating stressed and squirrely behavior with being put back into their cage

[Drew87]

With the little bitter i have i would stick my hand in the cage but like a stop hand flat so he really couldnt get his teeth in, but kinda like a bonk with his nose, kinda hard to explaine like a stop hand flat and up and down, get what im saying if not i understand im bad at explaineing stuff haha

[starmom]

Yep Drew- that is exactly it!!!

[Wh00h0069]

Yea, invest in a snake hook.

[Drew87]

thank you starmom haha i tried my best to explaine that one haha,

[starmom]

Yea, invest in a snake hook.

A hook for a ball python???