hissing

[Chuck6017]

So about 10 min ago i went to pick up my 1100+ gram female pastel. I have had her for about 2 months and have held her about 20 times. I went to pick her up again tonight and she hissed at me. At first i moved away then i went back and kept touching her so she didnt think she could hiss at me to keep me away. I didnt pick her up cause i didnt want to stress her out. I did feed one of my other snakes in the bin below her. She is the only one out of the 4 snakes that i have that has to eat live. I fed a FT mouse to the male spider under her. Do u think she smelt it and thats y she hissed at me? She is the tamest out of all my snakes. The male spider hissed at me before and my male 100% albino struck at me the first time i tried to pick him up. But this female pastel has let me pick her up anytime i want.

[knott00]

Its hard to say why she would have hissed at you. Maybe you startled her. When you went back to touch her after she hissed, did she hiss again?

The only time my snake hisses or strikes at anything is when she has to go in the snake bag. She HATES the bag. She hisses at it and strikes at it like she wants it dead.

[Chuck6017]

After she hissed the first time and then i went back she didnt hiss. But i def didnt startle her cause i touched her first and she was moving around the bin. Its not like i woke her up she was already out and about. IDK. Tomorrow im gonna try again and im sure she wont hiss at me. Would she hiss if she smelt food before i went to pick her up? Thats the only reason y i would think that she would hiss at me.

[Chuck6017]

ok just picked her up and held her for a few minutes. She must have just been spooked. Glad she still loves me.

[Lolo76]

It's possible the food smell triggered it, but usually they have a striking response to that... like my very docile female, who just struck at (towards) me as I was pulling her rat out of the box.

Hissing seems more like a defensive response, and my younger female does that when I startle her - i.e. if I pull her hide off for cleaning, while she's sleeping inside. I wouldn't worry about it, though, unless she becomes increasingly aggressive. She may have just been in a cranky mood, as us women get sometimes. Is it possible she could be going into shed?

[Patricia]

She may have just been in a cranky mood, as us women get sometimes.

Us? Nah, nevah!

Ours sometimes hisses when I take the hide off it. It's kinda comical seeing that little thing trying in take in more air to appear bigger!

[West Coast Jungle]

Hissing is normal for some snakes. Its usually just a bluff, leave me alone kinda thing. Like people they can get pissy sometimes.

[Danounet]

I have 3 BPs so far and I still dont know what hissing is by experience. I hope it stays that way Lol.

[Twisted Reptiles]

I have one female that hisses every single time I touch her. She is just nasty. Out of the countless hisses though I've only had her genuinely strike one time, and that was taking her off of her eggs. Other than that, she's all bark no bite.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Some of my snakes will hiss when touched--a few of them repeatedly, as they are picked up. Some of them will only hiss occasionally, and some never do. As was said, I think they just issue a warning when they really aren't in the mood to be touched. I only have one aggressive female, and with her, hissing is the least of our worries, lol. So, hissing doesn't lead automatically to striking, so long as you are very gentle and go slowly--I try to respect my snakes' moods if possible, and if not, I make the handling as brief as possible, unless the snake is one that isn't often handled and needs more socialization.