Newer owner. Question about handling.

Hey everyone, I've had my pied ball for a little over a month and a half. She has eaten about 4 times and shed once. She seems very happy (even though you can't really tell for sure). She usually sits inside her hide on her hot side. Today I took her out to handle for about 5 minutes. This was the most active she has been during me handling her. She was going through my hands and on my lap and didn't seems stressed. The one question I had was should I be worried her tongue was flicking most of the time during this. I know they use it to smell and get familiar with the surroundings, just wanted to make sure she's ok.

TLDR: Is a lot of flicking of the tongue normal during handling.

every snake is different, personality and behavior-wise. (half the time one of my bp's breathes with his mouth open because of a past RI).
if your snake is curious and not curled up, she feels comfortable enough knowing you arent planning to eat her.
my guess is that she wants to explore your room and the area around her enclosure, and i'd let her. i'd say just sit on the floor with her and keep an eye on her, but let her explore the are on her own. make sure its safe for her before you do this, but by letting her wander around she gains trust in you and her environment. it also lets you find out where any likely hiding places might be if she were to escape her enclosure one day.
(also if you put a heating pad under a blanket she might curl up on it next to you)



1.0 Banana Butter Ball Python: "Butter"
1.0 Enchi Ball Python: "Taquito"
0.1 Eclipse Leopard Gecko: "Melon"
0.1 Normal Leopard Gecko: "Casserole" aka "Cass"
0.1 Rex Rabbit: "Boo"

Tongue flicking is good.

Tongue flicking is normal...they don't rely on vision to identify things the way we do. Yes, they can see, but for them, motion gets their interest & heat gets their
attention (with heat-sensing pits on face), but to narrow it down (food or foe?) they use scent. A snake's tongue is forked to pick up double the number of mole-
cules from the air...when the tongue retracts, it goes to the Jacobsen's organ in the roof of their mouth for accurate assessment. If a snake could talk, they'd say
"I have to smell it to believe it." Snakes have extremely good sense of smell...they can smell the tiniest bit of rodent on your hands, even after you wash them in
many cases, & they trust what they smell more than what they see. To avoid confusing them & getting accidental bites, always keep this in mind. Their tongue
is like our eyes...their best sense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Tongue flicking is normal...they don't rely on vision to identify things the way we do. Yes, they can see, but for them, motion gets their interest & heat gets their
attention (with heat-sensing pits on face), but to narrow it down (food or foe?) they use scent. A snake's tongue is forked to pick up double the number of mole-
cules from the air...when the tongue retracts, it goes to the Jacobsen's organ in the roof of their mouth for accurate assessment. If a snake could talk, they'd say
"I have to smell it to believe it." Snakes have extremely good sense of smell...they can smell the tiniest bit of rodent on your hands, even after you wash them in
many cases, & they trust what they smell more than what they see. To avoid confusing them & getting accidental bites, always keep this in mind. Their tongue
is like our eyes...their best sense.

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Are you by any chance a writer? Or any kind of artist?


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Tongue flicking is normal...they don't rely on vision to identify things the way we do. Yes, they can see, but for them, motion gets their interest & heat gets their
attention (with heat-sensing pits on face), but to narrow it down (food or foe?) they use scent. A snake's tongue is forked to pick up double the number of mole-
cules from the air...when the tongue retracts, it goes to the Jacobsen's organ in the roof of their mouth for accurate assessment. If a snake could talk, they'd say
"I have to smell it to believe it." Snakes have extremely good sense of smell...they can smell the tiniest bit of rodent on your hands, even after you wash them in
many cases, & they trust what they smell more than what they see. To avoid confusing them & getting accidental bites, always keep this in mind. Their tongue
is like our eyes...their best sense.

---

Many autistic/Aspergers smell things before eating or tasting ..


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by ShawarmaPoutine

Are you by any chance a writer? Or any kind of artist?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I enjoy answering on this forum, if that makes me a "writer"? :D Artist? that's debatable too. ;)
Mostly I've just lived with too many snakes for too many years...:rofl:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zincubus

Many autistic/Aspergers smell things before eating or tasting...

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Didn't know that, that's interesting. Not sure what it has to do with snakes, but more 'food for thought' is good.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Boromir

Hey everyone, I've had my pied ball for a little over a month and a half. She has eaten about 4 times and shed once. She seems very happy (even though you can't really tell for sure). She usually sits inside her hide on her hot side. Today I took her out to handle for about 5 minutes. This was the most active she has been during me handling her. She was going through my hands and on my lap and didn't seems stressed. The one question I had was should I be worried her tongue was flicking most of the time during this. I know they use it to smell and get familiar with the surroundings, just wanted to make sure she's ok.

TLDR: Is a lot of flicking of the tongue normal during handling.

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My girl is VERY comfortable being handled, and she's pretty much about the same when it comes to adventuring and tongue flicks (though isn't not quite as crazy as before, I think she's getting to know my scent). She can get FAST too, so just be somewhere low to the ground if your Pied decides to dart around. I had to have my boyfriend help get Pax uncoiled from my ponytail a few weeks ago!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

Tongue flicking is normal...they don't rely on vision to identify things the way we do. Yes, they can see, but for them, motion gets their interest & heat gets their
attention (with heat-sensing pits on face), but to narrow it down (food or foe?) they use scent. A snake's tongue is forked to pick up double the number of mole-
cules from the air...when the tongue retracts, it goes to the Jacobsen's organ in the roof of their mouth for accurate assessment. If a snake could talk, they'd say
"I have to smell it to believe it." Snakes have extremely good sense of smell...they can smell the tiniest bit of rodent on your hands, even after you wash them in
many cases, & they trust what they smell more than what they see. To avoid confusing them & getting accidental bites, always keep this in mind. Their tongue
is like our eyes...their best sense.

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I would say their heat pits are better than their eyes too.
I was feeding a F/T rat, but I didn't warm up the rat after it had thawed this time, so when I put it in the snake smelled the rat and sensed the heat on my hand and I got mauled, she had to let go after a few seconds as I was too big a meal for her.