What is your snake thinking?

Failure to anticipate any snake's intentions by their body language can get you in big trouble- especially with large or hungry snakes. Here's a brutal reminder of how NOT to feed your snake: (Caution-graphic- to watch, click at right where it says "view") This was hard for me to watch, knowing what the snake is thinking:

https://twitter.com/RexChapman/statu...94294738739200

(Original story: https://outsider.com/outdoors/viral/...lf-around-arm/)

Human is thinking "Hi beautiful serpent" ("Oh look, he's coming right out to see me!") while snake is thinking "Prey?" Very preventable! Just a reminder to always signal your snake that this is not about food, & make SURE they understand your message. This is proof that they don't assess prey visually as to "will it fit?" or "is this the right prey?"

This is a very large snake that didn't grow to this size "overnight"- so to be charitable, maybe she hasn't owned this (or any?) snake for very long? This is a mistake best made with a small :snake: What you don't know CAN hurt you. Not the snake's fault, by the way. Very preventable accident. Just because you want or need to handle a snake, doesn't mean it's the right time- if your "message" is not understood by your snake, don't just proceed anyway.

This video is pretty old. NERD posted about it a couple years ago. The lesson bears repeating, though.

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Originally Posted by Homebody

This video is pretty old. NERD posted about it a couple years ago. The lesson bears repeating, though.

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I didn't even look at the date- I just thought it was a great example of what can go wrong between humans & snakes- truly hoping to prevent such events. We get new members & visitors all the time that didn't necessarily see this when it was previously posted.

And I don't necessarily think it reflects badly on our "community"- it's about learning the right from wrong ways, hopefully without duplicating the wrong ones.
People make mistakes with all kinds of animals- for example, some dogs will react to a stare as threatening, & attack. It's about understanding your animals.

I'd love to know if she still has this snake though.

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

I didn't even look at the date- I just thought it was a great example of what can go wrong between humans & snakes- truly hoping to prevent such events. We get new members & visitors all the time that didn't necessarily see this when it was previously posted.

And I don't necessarily think it reflects badly on our "community"- it's about learning the right from wrong ways, hopefully without duplicating the wrong ones.
People make mistakes with all kinds of animals- for example, some dogs will react to a stare as threatening, & attack. It's about understanding your animals.

I'd love to know if she still has this snake though.

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What made the strongest impression on me was how calm she was during the attack. Despite the danger she was in, she was careful not to harm the snake. That really impressed me. So, I would be surprised if she got rid of the snake because of this attack, but there are lots of other reasons to rehome a large retic like, maybe, you can't manage its care. She wouldn't be the first person to think she can manage a retic only to discover that she can't. Did you notice the stuck shed?

i agree a lot with Kevin and i think it points to the need for consistent night time feeding, tap training and practical hook use, reading body language, need for club soda, etc - my biggest thing is it’s v unfortunate the snake was injured like this when there is actually a lot of ways to get them to release that’s not damaging to the snake itself - per this thread, i use my hook as gauge of where my snakes are at mentally, in addition to the body language - tbf to her tho, i think it would be tricky if you don’t have any experience with them to immediately be able to differentiate between curious and inquisitive behaviors + feeding/hunting behaviors because they could seem kind of similar in a way you know

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Originally Posted by Homebody

...I would be surprised if she got rid of the snake because of this attack, but there are lots of other reasons to rehome a large retic like, maybe, you can't manage its care. She wouldn't be the first person to think she can manage a retic only to discover that she can't. Did you notice the stuck shed?

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She was very lucky that someone was there filming when this happened. That was clearly too much snake to handle alone, with the way it persisted to wrap her anyway. I'm just surprised that if she raised this snake up to this size, she should have known how to read its intentions long before this happened. But I don't know her background, & everyone makes mistakes- certainly everyone can learn from hers. Hopefully the stuck shed was not a regular thing?

I’ve seen that video before too and it still hurts to watch it. That was a pretty gnarly bite. I agree with everything that’s already been said in regards to keeping giant snakes, using a snake hook (which was right in front of her), and also understanding your snake’s behaviors. That retic was clearly hungry and looking for food. Most times a light tap with the hook will shut down that aggressive feeding response. You might still get tagged but the snake shouldn’t latch on and wrap up like this one did.

I've seen this video before and it reminds me a lot of what happened to me with my retic to an extent.

My male was smaller/leaner but in the 9 foot range. I was not bitten because of a feeding response however, instead, it was male combat behavior.

There were 3 of us here on the board that all got retics around the same time. I was the holdout as 1 person placed their animal, another male, and a buddy of mine had to place his female and his overly aggressive male next.

I purchased more serious equipment and had conversations with a great breeder/keeper, Garrett Hartle who gave me advice on how to work with my animal.
https://i.imgur.com/on97OUy.jpg

Long story short, I was wrapped, bitten and in a 10 minute battle. Both arms ended up wrapped for a time.

Like the woman in the video, I remained calm and after about 10 minutes he uncoiled. My wife never heard me shout for her to come down to help me out. A combative bite includes more twisting to damage the opponent. I was lucky to come out without too much damage, though I missed a couple days of work.

I placed the snake with a well known retic breeder a week or 2 later. To this day, he is still aggressive and difficult from what I'm told. That behavior is not at all relaxing and doesn't jive with the reasons I keep reptiles. Simply not for me, and I'm a solo show here. The family is not into it.

Depending on the species and sex of the animal, you may have to deal with behaviors other than feeding responses.

An apex predator that engages in pre-mating combat can add another dimension to your experience.

Hopefully this doesn't derail the post. I wanted to go back and dig up some pictures of my old retic. I hope this adds to the topic.

Hook training wasn't a guarantee with my guy and I'd been using a hook since day 1.

Here he is, worked out of his mind, full of testosterone and aggression.

This is the smaller of the 2 snake hooks. He attacked and wrapped this hook. He also musked when I tried to use another hook to get that one back. You can see his handy work on the glass.
https://i.imgur.com/RYGB0aO.jpg



Also the same incident pictured here. I used a dowel with a rag soaked in Listerine to try to get him to stop biting and retreat. He bit down on the rag and didn't care at all about the strong smell or awful taste. He dragged this around for a bit.
https://i.imgur.com/ztx4njh.jpg

His size about a year prior to our fight.
https://i.imgur.com/v1X7AYW.jpg

He was growing rapidly and already larger than I expected given his genetic makeup.
https://i.imgur.com/XliSNRV.jpg


Without a doubt he was the most beautiful and interesting snake I've ever owned. That said I don't recommend the species to anybody who isn't 100% committed or is thinking of doing it without help.
https://i.imgur.com/w0KkKfr.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/TwoaTif.jpg

Retics are a different bag, they aren't like anything else. I have been able to gauge the behavior of everything I've kept, and I've been able to typically read animals that belonged to others.

This animal hit maturity and became unpredictable day to day. It simply was not enjoyable for me.

You don't want to make a mistake with one of these once they get some size. As Bogertophis stated, the woman in the video was lucky she had another party there to assist her.

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Originally Posted by Gio

I've seen this video before and it reminds me a lot of what happened to me with my retic to an extent.

My male was smaller/leaner but in the 9 foot range. I was not bitten because of a feeding response however, instead, it was male combat behavior.

There were 3 of us here on the board that all got retics around the same time. I was the holdout as 1 person placed their animal, another male, and a buddy of mine had to place his female and his overly aggressive male next.

I purchased more serious equipment and had conversations with a great breeder/keeper, Garrett Hartle who gave me advice on how to work with my animal.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/on97OUy.jpg

Long story short, I was wrapped, bitten and in a 10 minute battle. Both arms ended up wrapped for a time.

Like the woman in the video, I remained calm and after about 10 minutes he uncoiled. My wife never heard me shout for her to come down to help me out. A combative bite includes more twisting to damage the opponent. I was lucky to come out without too much damage, though I missed a couple days of work.

I placed the snake with a well known retic breeder a week or 2 later. To this day, he is still aggressive and difficult from what I'm told. That behavior is not at all relaxing and doesn't jive with the reasons I keep reptiles. Simply not for me, and I'm a solo show here. The family is not into it.

Depending on the species and sex of the animal, you may have to deal with behaviors other than feeding responses.

An apex predator that engages in pre-mating combat can add another dimension to your experience.

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i’ve heard of male combat behavior before but it was different from what you describe and was something to the effect of rather biting and coiling or biting at all, competitive males would use their teeth to like scratch/slice their opponent/target - either way, i definitely think this is something worth analyzing and is exactly why i have pushed back on the idea that all negative/transgressive behavior can be reducible to this hungry/not hungry binary (or for that matter this defensive/permissive binary) - their intellect and behavior patterns are much more complex than this - Hartle is also where i learned that if you nibble on the end of their tail they’ll uncoil as well (p cool dude it seems)