Got bit while feeding..... lol

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

Caesar comes shooting out of his cage swaying like Stevie Wonder on a case of Red Bull.

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You have a way with words, my friend. You paint a picture with words that often makes me chuckle out loud.

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Originally Posted by jmcrook

I feed Phyllis with a pair of 40" snake tongs and even still have had one or two feedings where she missed and came a solid 2' out of the cage. Wouldn't even consider feeding her by hand, no way


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Lol welcome to my world. Caesar always flies out of his cage swaying with open mouth like Stevie Wonder. I thought he mellowed out on feeding response, yeah i was wrong. This last feeding, i had to literally wait until he went back in the cage and then close the door and when he was over seeing why i closed the door, i slid the other side open and threw the guinea pig on top of his hide lol. He came over and grabbed it and ate it. He is a total Dr Jekyll Mr Hyde when it comes to food.

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Originally Posted by craigafrechette

You have a way with words, my friend. You paint a picture with words that often makes me chuckle out loud.

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Lol it was the first thing i thought of. I also caught Caesar doing his impression of a facehugger from Alien. In the movie when Burke looked close at the test tube with the facehugger that turned out no to be dead and it tried to latch onto him through the glass. Caesar did that exact thing but with his mouth folded all the way open and all over the glass door. This was when he was a baby. He has since learned it yields better results to wait for the door to open and then just shoot out doing the facehugging Stevie Wonder on Redbull sway!! He's a real character of a snake with a dangerous side as well haha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0bgNmU58yQ

Thought of this video reading this thread... someone hand-feeding his snake - my all-time favorite snake, an Eastern Indigo... a badass snake as gentle as can be...

I do have one snake I hand feed - my spotted python, who feeds best when we do our crazy production number. But she's almost as mellow as that indigo, and smaller.


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Originally Posted by dylan815

I though it was a good idea to dangle a mouse with my hand in front of my baby retic

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Originally Posted by RickyNY

Probably your pinky was warmer :rofl:

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Originally Posted by dylan815

But it wasn't squirming around like the mouse was

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It's generally not a good idea to offer live prey from tongs, much less your hands. After a few seconds of being held by the tail, the rodent will start to panic. The longer it's held like this, the more wound up the critter is going to get. A squirmy rodent just increases the chances of a bad grab by your snake - in your case, the hand that feeds. Even when the snake does manage to hit the rodent, thanks to the added stress of prolonged tailing, this rodent is hyper alert and more likely to cause some retaliatory damage. Remember, these snakes are largely ambush predators in nature. They aren't chasing down panicking prey in the wild so if that's what you're offering, you should expect the unexpected.

I agree with John. Place the live mouse in the enclosure next time and let it wander around... leave rodent block or something to distract it if you want. tailing a mouse could even cause de-gloving of the tail and IMO, is more of an unnatural feeding position (prey above the snake vs. below).

I have cages with sliding glass doors and always open the door opposite the snake's head, slide the food item in, with the door only cracked. That way, even if there is a mis-strike, it won't be at my arm / face, etc.

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Originally Posted by distaff

Is it vision?? I hold the tail in my hand. The corn has managed to fall half out of the enclosure himself in the process, but the Colubrids and the Rosy all have good aim. I've never been tagged.

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It's a combination of vision, infrared heat detection and smell, at least for the species with external heat pits or heat sensitive areas under the mouth scales.

They certainly don't see the same spectrum that we do. Some snakes do have more acute vision than others and I believe retics possibly have more refined components of sense than some of the other medium to large constrictors. I'd like to see a study or two beyond what Ive already read on the subject to confirm or negate my thoughts. However some colubrids some Aussie pythons and others seem to be strictly driven by vision and smell. It is an interesting subject.

The reason people often get targeted is fairly obvious. We are HUGE compared to the prey in most cases. They smell the prey, but we give off a much larger heat signature and our movement is easier to pick up and track. A warm hand attached to a warm arm attached to our vascular face that is breathing air isn't a bad miss as far as they are concerned.

Its good to make the "feeding mistakes" when they are small though. The small snakes will let go usually though some little buggers just go for it. A very large snake could be a real problem which is why recommendations of another person or two or three is smart.