BP showing signs of aggression. Advice?

I wouldn't try petting her in the viv... Just asking for trouble IMO. I had/have an extremely feisty girl I've been dealing with for the past 8 months or so. You definitely want to get it under control before she gets too much weight on her. What worked for me was basically giving her about 5% open floor space, everything else is filled with clutter. I have a bushy plant in the front (she was striking the front of her tub HARD every time I walked by), along with her water bowl and a hide smushed in there. Then I have two more hides at the back, and another in the middle. Any free space left is packed with fake plants. I keep her entire tub covered with a black pillow case. I would start with handling her every day for a few minutes. She'll eventually start to settle down and realize you're not trying to kill her. This has worked wonders for me. Now I only get the occasional hiss when I pull the hide off of her.

Here's a cool vid on dealing with aggressive hatchlings :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7DQssbM0uk

Yeah, when I first got my pastel she keep striking at the front of the viv, hard about 6-8 times. She calmed down after that and then started up again. I was trying to focus on getting her feeding over taming her down but if I can't get her out for cleaning there may be a problem I may invest in some thin leather gloves and try to handle her until she realises I'm not scared of her and she has no need to be scared of me.

I think cluttering up her viv more would be very beneficial also. I was tempted to downgrade her to a tub but I can't afford another heat mat and mat stat right now and I can't attach her to the mat stat I have at the moment as my boy is still in quarantine away from her.

In the future, you might want to put tinfoil over the sticky section of the heat mat. Then just affix it to the tub, tank, etc with aluminum tape and voila! You have a removable, reusable UTH. Makes your life a toooon easier to just pop it off and move it when you upgrade enclosures.

I'd definitely use gloves if you're fearful of her. I'll admit, I used them when I first started working with my gal. Kind of embarrassing that I was a bit scared of an itty bitty snake. But it will make you much more confident when handling your snake, and that will go a long way toward helping you settle her down.

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Originally Posted by MootWorm

In the future, you might want to put tinfoil over the sticky section of the heat mat. Then just affix it to the tub, tank, etc with aluminum tape and voila! You have a removable, reusable UTH. Makes your life a toooon easier to just pop it off and move it when you upgrade enclosures.

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My problem is not having another tub, nor another heat mat or separate mat stat. My girl has a ceramic in her viv and a pulse proportional thermostat whereas my boy, who is in a different room for quarantine purposes, has a heat mat and mat stat thermostat as he is housed in a tub (which I much prefer to a viv, I find it a lot easier for handling a you have more angles you can go in from). Not sure if I have maybe read your point wrong or didn't make myself clear enough.

I think I will definitely be wearing gloves with her. She has a powerful little strike for a little girl and although I have read that bites aren't as bad I don't plan on finding out any time soon :p I will say I am nervous about being bitten but I am more worried that I couldn't stop myself pulling back and that I would cause her harm! I think handling her and taming may be the only way forward until she realises that hissing and striking won't just make me go away unless it's meal time :)

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Originally Posted by Naom9Anne

My problem is not having another tub, nor another heat mat or separate mat stat. My girl has a ceramic in her viv and a pulse proportional thermostat whereas my boy, who is in a different room for quarantine purposes, has a heat mat and mat stat thermostat as he is housed in a tub (which I much prefer to a viv, I find it a lot easier for handling a you have more angles you can go in from). Not sure if I have maybe read your point wrong or didn't make myself clear enough.

I think I will definitely be wearing gloves with her. She has a powerful little strike for a little girl and although I have read that bites aren't as bad I don't plan on finding out any time soon :p I will say I am nervous about being bitten but I am more worried that I couldn't stop myself pulling back and that I would cause her harm! I think handling her and taming may be the only way forward until she realises that hissing and striking won't just make me go away unless it's meal time :)

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Ahh yes, I must have misread. I thought the issue was that you couldn't get another heat mat to put on a tub. And no, bites aren't all that painful. I've been bitten many times over by my girl lol. The trick for me was moving smoothly and at a moderate pace when reaching in for her. The gloves helped me stop the hesitant and jerky movements, which seemed to put her on edge (understandably so). Best of luck when taming her down!!

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Originally Posted by Naom9Anne

My problem is not having another tub, nor another heat mat or separate mat stat. My girl has a ceramic in her viv and a pulse proportional thermostat whereas my boy, who is in a different room for quarantine purposes, has a heat mat and mat stat thermostat as he is housed in a tub (which I much prefer to a viv, I find it a lot easier for handling a you have more angles you can go in from). Not sure if I have maybe read your point wrong or didn't make myself clear enough.

I think I will definitely be wearing gloves with her. She has a powerful little strike for a little girl and although I have read that bites aren't as bad I don't plan on finding out any time soon :p I will say I am nervous about being bitten but I am more worried that I couldn't stop myself pulling back and that I would cause her harm! I think handling her and taming may be the only way forward until she realises that hissing and striking won't just make me go away unless it's meal time :)

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I would leave the gloves off. At 200g she's not going to hurt you. You get a better feel for her with your bare hand and she gets used to your hand (and all it's associated heat and scents) reaching in and picking her up.

You may not even realize she bit you unless you're looking directly at her when she does it. There's no guarantee she's going to bite you anyways. It's huff and puff designed to scare you. One of my males did that when I first got him. 700g and he would flatten out and hiss like some sort of monster. The first time, I almost closed the tub...but I didn't want to set the precedent of closing up the tub and leaving him alone when he hissed at me. So I took a deep breath, and reached in fully aware I was going to have python teeth sinking into my hand. It was coming...I knew it was coming...here it comes...

Nothing. Picked him up, he quieted down.

If you're really worried, distract her with an empty paper towel tube while you pick her up.

She struck and bit twice tonight when I was trying to get her out for a clean. Luckily she bit the hand the glove was on. I did pick her up with an ungloved hand as the gloves I had were too thick for me to be able to function in them (welder's gloves I had lying around)

Keep in mind that you are a big scary creature and its just a tiny baby! With any luck your BP will grow out of its aggression. I have a cage aggressive adult who I bought from a local pet store, the poor thing was so traumatized you couldn't even walk into the room without getting hissed or snapped at. I found that blacking out of the sides of the terrarium helped a lot as far as stressing it out goes, I also found that moving her into a rack instead of a tank worked wonders for helping with aggression ( It might be because the terrarium she was in was fairly tall and the bins in my rack are low). I suggest trying to handle your baby on a regular basis a few days after feeding up until a day or so before feeding. Even if you're just holding it for 10-15 min with gloves, or able to get it sitting on your lap without eating you, it will help it to get used to being picked up and taken out without you being so much of a threat. Give it time, and it will take work, but like I said its just a baby and will probably grow out of it.

Yeah, her enclosure is only glass fronted and I have been trying to leave her be until she was eating steadily. I bought some leather gloves today and I am bathing her to try to see if the retained eye cap will come off. Hoping this is why she is being defensive, if not it's going to be a case of getting her to a stage of tolerance and trust with me. I'll keep persevering, I find the gloves have given me a lot more confidence with just going in and handling too so I shouldn't hesitate giving her a chance to go defensive :)

Hmmm... First off, I'm sorry :( I had an aggressive corn (not the same as a ball, but still) who struck ALL THE TIME. A method a corn breeder told me about really worked for us. I wonder if it would work for you...
Although, I don't have any experience with fiesty ball pythons, and if someone thinks this is a downright bad idea, please chime in!

This is what I was advised to do for my yearling corn snake (about half the weight of your ball python):

Take her out every day for 1-2 *hours* at a time. If she struck, I was advised to follow through with my motions anyways, and not to pull back (as natural as it is to do that). Basically to just put up with the biting and striking. Personally I got used to it, so gloves were not needed.
I was told to just sit with her. Just let her do her thing, but get her to stay with me - so no letting her go off of your body. Even just watch TV or a movie with her, but just keep her out.
I was told to only put her back once she was calm and relaxed (or stopped freaking out, if that's all she did the whole time she was out). If she went crazy, I was advised to disregard this. I don't mean ignore her or make her more upset, but just let her do her thing and try not to react to her. Even if I covered her with dark clothing or whatever to calm her down, as long as she's on me or with me somehow.

So, after 6 days of this, she was a completely changed snake! I sh*t you not. She had already been with me 3 weeks, and her temperatures were accurate and she was eating regularly (3 weeks in a row) before I tried this. I tried not touching her for a long while, and all that. Didn't seem to work. But this method did.
My corn used to strike at me CONSTANTLY, in and out of her vive. I can't even tell you how many times she tagged me. I'd say easily 10-20 times in one attempt at getting her out of her vive.
But now, she hasn't struck at me since I tried this method. She's FANTASTIC.


So... I'm not sure how others will feel about this. Maybe it's too much, or it would be too stressful for a ball python. I really don't know, so please take this with "a grain of salt".
If anyone has done something like with a BP this it might be more helpful.