Striking Baby

I just wanted to update that we have switched to 5 day feedings and reduced the handling time and things are going well. No more striking at all. He was out and looking for food within two minutes of us walking in the door with his mouse on Tuesday too. He caught the scent from the next room. hehe

Thanks for all the help!

theres just one thing i wanted to point out...your hot side seems a little, high i keep mine around 90 and everythings perfect

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Originally Posted by Chubbz

theres just one thing i wanted to point out...your hot side seems a little, high i keep mine around 90 and everythings perfect

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It's actually about 91 this week. I was having a little trouble maintaining the temps from day to evening so we turned the temperature up in the room to 78 and turned the UTH's down a little so we're at 82 and 91 now for the past 6 days.

Thanks for pointing it out for me though! It was bothering me that it was a little too high which was part of the reason we changed the room temp.

I swear I'm putting more work into Mugsy than I do my own kids right now! :rofl: Luckily, they are totally into it and eager to learn along with me. My 3 year old has even built herself a tub enclosure with a lego hide, castoff temp gauges and a pencil for a climbing post. This is for her four invisible snakes, Mops, Tops, Kit and Lucas. Note invisible not imaginary. There is a huge difference for her. :P

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

The digital scale is just really to keep a close eye on weight gains. You want a nice steady weight gain especially as babies and one of the first things you'll be asked if you ask a question about feeding frequency or size of prey is "how big is your snake". Since length doesn't mean all that much, weight is a vital thing to know. No need to buy a hugely expensive digital scale, department stores or office supply stores often have nice scales (either kitchen or postal) for $30 or less. :) If you run a search here on digital scales you'll likely come up with loads of threads.

The other way of determining proper prey size for ball pythons is to compare the largest girth of the prey (on rodents that's the butt/hip area to the largest empty girth of your snake). A lot of us go with equal to or slightly less than girth so that when the snake eats it does not have a distended feeding bump. Others feed other ways, using other standards. As far as using weights - I generally go every 5 days until they hit about 150 to 200 grams, then every 7 after that weight is achieved.

My kids are much the same LOL. They think it's perfectly normal to have snakes all over the place. Whenever a new friend comes to play with my youngest whose 6, and they get all googley eyed over the snakes, young Michael tends to sigh, roll his eyes, shrug and mumble..."they are JUST snakes...geeze!". :)

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Excellent, informative and helpful post:gj:
I can't give you another rep point but I can give you kudos.

Sounds like you temps are fine, they can go as high as 94 and you will be fine.

My thought is that you might be handling her a little bit too much and she is getting egdy. I have had some babies that just ball up, some run for the hills and some strike. The reality is they are all usually signs of stress, although striking could just be great feeding response too. Either way any new snake needs time to settle in and settle down, then get used to handling. This is a great place to learn from others experience and find out what makes those lil buggers tick. Welcome aboard:snake:

Ive got a few smaller 07s who are still shy and strike at me. But anything over 200g I have don't strike, they may hiss when I first touch them but I just assume its their personality. My 07 albino was and still is my most gentle one, I open the tub and she comes out of her hide and right into my hands.

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Originally Posted by Allie

I swear I'm putting more work into Mugsy than I do my own kids right now! :rofl: Luckily, they are totally into it and eager to learn along with me. My 3 year old has even built herself a tub enclosure with a lego hide, castoff temp gauges and a pencil for a climbing post. This is for her four invisible snakes, Mops, Tops, Kit and Lucas. Note invisible not imaginary. There is a huge difference for her. :P

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I'm the mother of 4, the youngest is 6 years old and I know WELL that one must respect the invisible members of one's household (at one time we had an entire imaginary family living us with...I didn't mind them until the imaginary parents started giving permission for things I'd just said no to! LOL). Now the Michael is 6 he will openly admit the difference but still defends his right to a very active imagination .."okay I'm imagining it but it still counts mom" Too cute!

Maybe your little girl would enjoy some of those really nice rubber fake snakes. Our Michael has his own ball python but also has a huge stuffed snake and two quite realistic rubber snakes (helps him to deal with the "you can't constantly play with your snake" issue). Sometimes you can use the fake snakes to practise proper snake handling too. :)

There are two types of striking.. the feeding response, and the quick defensive strike. If the snake was exhibiting a feeding response, it would have grabbed your hand and coiled around it, thinking that you were a prey item. I actually had this happen with one of my adult females.. ouch! Defensive striking is fast, shocking (to the strikee) and a result of stress. Maybe your snake was just really relaxed by being in your shirt, and got frazzled upon being "woken up?" I really think that your snake was striking defensively. Feeding strikes are pretty aggressive and can lead to the snake "chasing" as opposed to striking and retreating.