handling for pet owners

I have a question... moreso directed to those of you who have snakes as a pet, rather than just for breeding... How often do you handle your BP? I've read a lot of different things and thoughts on this. Mine is young, about 2 months old and I handle her almost every day for 5-10 minutes. I don't bother her at all for at least 24 hours after a meal though. I've only had her a little over a week, but I can see her responding to me better already. She used to just lay coiled in my hand, and the past two days, within a minute, she has started to smell around and explore a little. Is this her actually exploring, or just trying to get away? Since she will crawl around and then just hang out in my hands/arms, I assume she isn't too overly fearful, but I still keep the handling to a short amount of time then put her back in the cage. In MY mind, i would think the more a snake is handled from a young age, the better they would handle and grow accustomed, but what do I know... this is my first snake, and while I've been researching out the wazoo, I don't have any first-hand experience over the long-term as most of you do.

Here she is, finally stretching out in my hands...
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/l2...=w1663-h935-no

What you're doing sounds good. As long as the snake is eating/hiding/ect. normally, you don't have to worry about stressing them with moderate handling. Other than giving mine a break after eating, I like to handle mine once a day even if it's just for a few seconds. IMO that's a good way to catch any potential health problems before they get bad.

Yea, no problems there. She spends about half of her time in the warm hide, and half in the cool hide... and sometimes in the paper-towel roll, right in the middle. She eats well.

You'd be able to tell if she were not relaxed or trying to get away. Personally I like to handle my snakes for a few minutes at least every other day, even if it is just a quick once over to check for health issues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My kings get two to three days rest after eating. Otherwise, I try to handle every day. If they don't seem to want it, I leave them in peace. Other days, they contentedly hang out in my hand. About a 15 min session, usually evenings when they are most active. These two get busy after dark, climbing and searching everywhere. I figure they might as well come out for a few minutes.

Every snake is different, some are fine to be handled for long periods of time every day and others will become stressed with too much handling. I handle Noodles every day (except for 48 hours after a meal) for sometimes over and hour and she's totally fine with it. As long as your BP is behaving normally, then what you're doing is fine. :)

It totally depends on the snake, it seems... some snakes might be easily stressed out with handling. But many are totally fine with handling every day for 30 minutes even.

I handle mine every day for some 20~30 minutes, or up to an hour, depending on what I feel like... they really don't mind. And I don't handle the 2 days right after a feeding. Cake (around 500g) eats every 9 days, and Yukon (250g) eats every 7 days.'

I find that with handling every day, mine become MORE tolerant/trusting, and mostly just sit in my hand/arms and look around. They move around a little, but always come back to my hand, even if they have a choice to leave.