Question about sudden aggression/attitude problem

I have an adult male and he has been the sweetest snake his entire life. Really docile, never tried to bite or even hiss. I just came back from studying abroad for four months and my brother probably wasn't the most diligent about his feeding schedule. I fed him three days ago and he was being really moody and aggressive after the feeding. Even today I tried to refill his water dish and he practically lunged out of his cold side hide to strike at my hand. Is he just really hungry or could this be some sort of changing of the seasons horniness or bad attitude? Do your snakes go through periods of weird pissy behavior?

Aww he missed you and wanted to give you kisses with his teeths :D

But in all seriousness. He was prob never taken out or was socialized with in that 4 months so it looks like you have some handling to do!

Could you give us some more details? Type/size of cage, heat source, temperatures/humidity in the cage, and how you are measuring temperatures/humidity would be a good start.

How often and how much are you feeding him, and how big/old is he? (weight)

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Originally Posted by reptiliachnids

Aww he missed you and wanted to give you kisses with his teeths :D

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Hahaha that is perfect! He missed his mommy. I guarantee he wasn't handled much at all so that is a good guess. I'll just have to work on him and avoid the teeth kisses!

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Originally Posted by TaylorL

Hahaha that is perfect! He missed his mommy. I guarantee he wasn't handled much at all so that is a good guess. I'll just have to work on him and avoid the teeth kisses!

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I'm more inclined to think that something is/was slightly off with his husbandry.

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Originally Posted by The Serpent Merchant

Could you give us some more details? Type/size of cage, heat source, temperatures/humidity in the cage, and how you are measuring temperatures/humidity would be a good start.

How often and how much are you feeding him, and how big/old is he? (weight)

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He is in a long 75 gallon tank with an under the tank heating pad and a lamp. Hot side is around 90 degrees, cold side is around 75. I tend to mist to try and keep humidity around 55-60 but his caretaker probably wasn't misting daily. He also has a humidity hide box. I have digital thermometers and a digital hygrometer that seem to be pretty accurate. When I got home I cleaned out his cage, put in new aspen bedding and new hide boxes, then fed him.

His age is unknown; he used to live in a classroom and I got him when the teacher retired. He is around 2.5 feet. His normal feeding schedule is 2-3 live mice every ten days but my brother probably stretched it longer between feedings.

There's also the chance of it being a pain reaction. Especially since you were gone so long, make sure to give him a good once-over (have fun trying to check the mouth XD ), just in case he maybe messed up a tooth during a feeding or something. I'm fostering a 5 year old male, sweet as anything and a little shy, who's never gone through that severe of an attitude change from neglect, and there's a reason I'm fostering him. I've never before seen a snake visibly relax as soon as it was away from it's house.

Does the heating pad have a thermostat?

Do your digital thermometers have probes? (if so is there a probe on the floor of the cage directly over the heating pad?

How thick is the layer of aspen?

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Originally Posted by The Serpent Merchant

Does the heating pad have a thermostat?

Do your digital thermometers have probes? (if so is there a probe on the floor of the cage directly over the heating pad?

How thick is the layer of aspen?

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The heating pad does not have a thermostat. The probes for the thermometer are stuck in the layer of bedding under his hides. There is a layer of newspaper over the glass and the probes touch that. The layer of bedding is about an inch thick.

I also gave him a pretty thorough look-over and he seems physically fine and he had a really good shed right before I got home.

Heating pads must have a thermostat, they not only can get hot enough to kill a snake... But are also a fire risk.

You haven't had any issues so far because the layer of aspen is so thick. Heating pads need the substrate layer to be 1/2" thick or less to be effective.

I would just unplug the heating pad, it sounds like your heat lamp is providing the proper temperatures anyway (heating pads do not change the air temperature in the cage, only heat the floor)

If you are going to continue to use the heating pad, you will need to thin out the aspen to 1/2" thick or less and get a thermostat.

Even if the surface of the aspen isn't too hot, he can dig down and get to the glass bottom of the tank.

Don't waste your money on thermostats sold in pet stores, they are junk. Here are 2 good thermostats:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000NZZG3S

http://spyderrobotics.com/