A few food related tags...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by First_time_herp

But then don't the snakes associate your hands with food? I mena that sounds great if you don't handle your snakes that much, but I want to. I want Link to be able to be handled.

---

No.

If you ONLY opened the cage to feed, THEN maybe your snake would be prone to bite ..while it is in it's cage..

I handle my snakes about once a week, and they do not think I am food.

That whole thing is mostly a myth.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by First_time_herp

But then don't the snakes associate your hands with food? I mena that sounds great if you don't handle your snakes that much, but I want to. I want Link to be able to be handled.

---

No. My snakes associate TONGS with food. I don't hand feed them. While they are fed in their enclosures & do exhibit feeding responses when I first open the cage, I also know each individual well enough to be able to pick them up w/o getting bit...and this encompasses everything from a baby radiated ratsnake to my 15' (and growing) female retic.

Part of being a successful snake keeper is learning how to read, interpret & anticipate your snake's behavior. Learn how to work with the snake on its terms - don't force it to eat in a strange environment just because bad husbandry advice gets bandied about as gospel.

Ball pythons are typically shy animals and can be sensitive (how's that for PC?) feeders. Taking your snake out of a familiar environment & putting it in a plain, empty box can be stressful. Adding a rodent to that situation can be even more stressful. Ball pythons aren't retics. They aren't Burms. They aren't scrubs, they aren't anacondas. If you get bit, big deal, it's not going to kill you. Make life easier on your snake.

Just my $2.00 (includes fuel surcharge)

K~

Yes you definitely learn your snakes' body language.

By now I usually (not always! lol) can tell who is bluffing and who really wants a piece of me.. also who reacts in what way to food being introduced.

Salina gets fed in her cage every week. We also grab her from her cage. Everyone in the family does. Me, my wife, my 9 yr old son, and 8 yr old daughter. No one has been tagged in this house.

Kashmire has always been fed live in his own enclosure. He gets fed on Saturdays, and is not handled until Monday at the earliest. To date, he has NEVER been aggressive or tried to strike me on non-feeding days (nor on feeding days for that matter).


On feeding day, I simply check which hide he's in and drop the mouse in the other end of the enclosure. Kashmire takes care of the rest.

Speaking of learning body language, I've learned that Kashmire does not like it when he's out and about and I drop the mouse in. He's more likely to refuse feed if he's in the open. If he's safely ensconsed in one of his hides, he's never missed a meal. Out in the open, he's missed several. I guess he likes the sneak attack, and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with his sense of security.

Thanks for all the advice guys, I'll make sure to try everything said.

I think we're lucky (at least so far) with ours. She has never tagged any of us (but still time I guess, she's only 7 months). We feed her in her enclosure normally but she has also eaten for us "on display" a couple of times when our small nephew came over to watch the feeding process.


It was feeding day and we had her out anyway downstairs and as my daughter's room is small and couldn't accommodate the "audience" of 6 adults and a small child. We put her on a towel on the floor and after I'd said "I don't suppose for a minute she'll take it" she did her thing as perfectly as she always does. When it was all down we removed her on the towel and put her in the viv. I wondered if she might regurgitate later but she didn't. She's done this once again for her audience ... but it isn't something we'd normally do.

We feed the balls and the bci in their tanks...everything from mice to rats to small baby bunnies in the case of the bci...and everything from f/t to p/k to live depending on which snake we're feeding.

The snakes all come out for regular handling and so far any tags or attempt to nip have been more about that snake's specific attitude or a mistake on our part in not reading the snake and the situation properly. We do have a different routine on feeding day and the snakes seem to recognize the difference between that and a normal handling session. We also have a routine when we go to handle them and by sticking to it religiously the snakes again seem to recognize it's nothing they need to feel defensive about.

We feed with hemostats and have one of our snakes that will strike at an empty hemostat with no prey present. I guess she is somehow able to recognize that the "shiney thing" equates to feeding time. She is a great snake to handle with no attempts to strike at us otherwise.

i feed my guy in his cage with a pair of long tongs. this way my hands are not really even in the cage and he is more worried about the mouse on the other end anyway. i handle him everyday and have not had any aggresion towards my hands coming in to get him

Jo, maybe your girl can smell the presence of rodent on the tongs and that's why she strikes?

Like everyone else, I've fed in the enclosure for a year now and have never once been struck or hissed at. My guy has an amazing temperment and the routines on feeding day versus handling days are so vastly different that there's ZERO room for error.

If for some crazy reason he's going to strike at me one day, it's going to be because he's pissed off, not because he thinks it's time to eat. There's just no way he could get the wrong idea.