Aggressive Blue Eyed Leucisitic Ball Python

To the OP - Don't "pet" a freaked out snake, plain and simple. She knows you're there.The longer you hover over her and poke at her (petting doesn't soothe a BP), the more terrified you are making her. Think about it - what do predators do? They hover overhead and test the prey until they find a weakness, and then they eat baby BPs. Pick her up smoothly and with confidence, and she'll figure out that you aren't going to eat her.

Also, I think "tap" is even too strong of a word. If you just touch her head when you reach in, she will almost always retreat rather than continue to fixate on the perceived threat of your hand.

Lol, yeah, I laugh at the snake hook for 200 gram ball python...I've been bit by my yellow, I still dive right in to get her out ;). Just use the hand shield idea and pull her out!!! Most people say let your snake settle in for a week, I say 2-3 days is fine. I have done this with ALL of my snakes and they are all awesome and most even let me pet their heads!!!!!!!! If its been a couple days and she still doesn't go hide, she probably does not feel comfy with open space, clutter the crap out of the tank so she has places to hide when out, and 1 extra hide on the WARM side and the cool side for now.

Ball Pythons
0.3 Normals (Coilette, Athena and Mary Jane)
1.0 Spider Morph (Zeus)
1.0 Mojave (Prometheus)
1.0 Pastel (De Sol)

Boas
0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Stella)
0.1 Hog Island BCI (Kiyoko)
0.1 Dumerils Boa (Gloria)
0.1 Yellow Anaconda (Serenity)

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Originally Posted by Kurtilein

one method that works well with small agressive snakes is to make a flat hand, come from above, and lower the flat hand slowly over the head of the snake. because they keep their head horizontal and dont tilt it sideways, its clode to impossible to bite that way. When your hand is gently covering the head, you take her halfway down the body, and one you are holding her and she is in crawling mode chances of a bite drop significantly. Then you can hold her until she calms down.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgCP6S5q554 unfortunately its in german, and he shows it with a baby retic because they are more agressive, but you can see it very well. after 0:45 in the video he shows how to do it correctly, after 2:45 he shows how not to do it and the mistake nervous people that are a bit scared of the snake tend to make, and gets tagged twice. Then he shows how to do it correctly a second time. Basically you use a flat hand at the right angle as a shield, and if she tries to strike she just bumps her nose against your flat hand and noone gets hurt.


EDIT: in response to the other post, im one of the guys that believes that you cannot get a ball python to really be more tame without handling it. Tame snakes are, in my mind, snakes that were handled correctly and often enough when they were young. a week of rest, making the enclosure so that the snake feels more secure, that can all help and assists in the process, but only handling the snake correctly and often enough seals the deal. Thats the core of it and everything else combined cannot be a substitute for it.

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There is actually 5 different snakes here. The 2 that bit him was first a burm and second a ball. But, very good technique to learn!! Also, I dig that short tail python near the end :)

Ball Pythons
0.3 Normals (Coilette, Athena and Mary Jane)
1.0 Spider Morph (Zeus)
1.0 Mojave (Prometheus)
1.0 Pastel (De Sol)

Boas
0.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (Stella)
0.1 Hog Island BCI (Kiyoko)
0.1 Dumerils Boa (Gloria)
0.1 Yellow Anaconda (Serenity)