Timid girl. What to do?

I've had her for about 3 months and she is the sweet type. So shy yet curious and never strikes at anything besides food. She is also the type who is easily startled, jumping 3 feet in the air if I touch her on the nose and hiding her head often. Feeding her has been a struggle to say the least. Got her eating for a couple weeks after a fast for the first 2 months and now she's turning it down again. Haven't changed anything. She's been in a 15qt in a rack setup with a hide so it can't be a security issue.

Oh, and her first birthday is next month so she's not exactly a baby. I just want to handle her more. Times together have been few and far between because I don't want to stress her. I'm starting to wonder if I should be handling her more to get her used to me, hm? :snake:

I know somebody has advice!

I would not handle her until she is eating very consistently. Then work up to once a week for maybe 5-10 minutes and see how she does. Snakes really don't enjoy being held, so it's hard to recommend you hold her all the time, because some don't tolerate it as much as others. I really only hold my snakes maybe once or twice a week just to keep them calm.

Most Ball pythons are head shy and it can take them a while to unlearn that habit, it is a natural defense since their heads are very vulnerable.

Generally, I hold mine to remove them to clean after they soil their enclosures. Other then that I let them be snakes.

With my experience with my hatchling females that I have held back girls that are a yr of age tend to get kind of finicky at least about food. They start slowing down their eating gaining slow weight. It's all practice for breeding. I have a few girls that I hatched out last year and the year before that have gone off food at about a year or slowed down on their food.

I only hold my hatchlings and leave my adults be. They are all pretty tame some more then others. I have others that will do nothing but try and bite also. But give her some time and I bet she'll calm right down. Do you have hides for her? Some aggression can come from that, to where she does not feel secure. Give a run down of her enviroment and we'll see what we can do to help you.