My BP drank from my bare hands again!

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Originally Posted by brokeballer

Feeding and offering drink from the hands is so cool and sweet! I love when im holding my snakes and i i just put a rat in the tub and let then strike out of my hands. And if we get bit, oh well, certainly not ganna put a bad mark on the hobby unless your the biggest wino in the world and call up channel 6 news cause you got pricked with the least painful little pin prick youve ever felt. Hell getting bit by a bp is even cute.... And ive been bit hard by a 4850 gram hungry bp. I even knew it was coming, but i needed to weigh her and took her to my friends to feed her after. It left a bruise and looked brutal with blood coming down my arm but guess what, it didnt hurt. The fear is the only thing that hurts us, and i not a chicken when it comes to bp's........ lol:tears:

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I'm not saying you, but we do have kids on this website that live with their parents and if they tried this because they seen it and thought it would be cool and got bit, that infact does put a mark on the hobby. Especially if the parents don't like snakes in the first place. Also they have kids that read these forums, my 8 year old nephew browses these forums occasionally. That's what I meant by a bad judgement call, now what you do behind closed doors is all on you.

I want to handle a cobra with my bare hands, but if I ever did, you won't see me posting about it. You just have to think about some stuff before you post because of the nature of the website.

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Originally Posted by Neal

Animals are animals and while you think you "learn" they're behavior, the fact is they're unpredictable. This is the reason you see people get killed or injured by large constrictors they thought they knew for the previous 10 years of owning it.

Now, if you would of realized that I wasn't talking to you in the first place, as I was referring to jxl's post where his BP is sitting on the table and he stated that it crawled up to his hand and took the rat out of his bare hands, you would of known that my original post wasn't even directed to you.

It's why I said, if the snake would of struck and missed.

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I'm assuming you don't own a dog or a cat. Both of those are far more dangerous and unpredictable than ball pythons. For the record, there are very few instances of 10ft+ snakes killing their owners. Even the HSUS only claims to know of seventeen cases of constrictor related deaths since 1978. The owners can't tell us what happened, and the snakes were never asked, but I can almost guarantee that we're talking about animals with next to no human interaction beyond the minimum for feeding and cleaning. Maybe when they were younger and more manageable, but not once they started getting some size. That's hardly a recipe for familiarity.

Now, as far as whether you were talking to me to begin with, no one said you were. You simply made an inaccurate generalization about a subject that's close to me. That's why I responded. Not because it was aimed at me.

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Originally Posted by patientz3ro

I'm assuming you don't own a dog or a cat. Both of those are far more dangerous and unpredictable than ball pythons. For the record, there are very few instances of 10ft+ snakes killing their owners. Even the HSUS only claims to know of seventeen cases of constrictor related deaths since 1978. The owners can't tell us what happened, and the snakes were never asked, but I can almost guarantee that we're talking about animals with next to no human interaction beyond the minimum for feeding and cleaning. Maybe when they were younger and more manageable, but not once they started getting some size. That's hardly a recipe for familiarity.

Now, as far as whether you were talking to me to begin with, no one said you were. You simply made an inaccurate generalization about a subject that's close to me. That's why I responded. Not because it was aimed at me.

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Were you there to know the fact? No, so don't presume to act like you do. I said it's a bad judgement call. I never said it couldn't be done. I never said dogs or cats were unpredictable either. I own a wolf, so I know of the risks but you don't see me over here advertising it either.

You said I didn't read a few posts up where it never struck. I wasn't even referring to anything you said, I never said it struck either, I said it could of and missed. You just don't know. I did not make an inaccurate generalization, I said it's a bad judgement call to sit here and advertise it. You could have your animal for 25 years, and it never bite you, and you deal with it several times a week. That doesn't mean you know your animal. Snakes can't learn, sure they can associate smells with experiences. If you honestly think you know your snake and know it won't do something, then you're either blind or found something that's legal to smoke, and have had way too much of it. Snakes are awesome pets, and I think it sucks that people look down on them due to fears and such. But snakes a primitive species with little reasoning skills. They can't be trained to sit or fetch, roll over or play dead. Snakes react mainly from instincts.

We can continue this all day long if you'd like but common sense always triumphs in the end.

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Also your assumption is as blank as the peoples assumption of what happened. I know people that have been bit by snakes they've interacted with the whole snakes life.

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Originally Posted by Neal

Were you there to know the fact? No, so don't presume to act like you do. I said it's a bad judgement call. I never said it couldn't be done. I never said dogs or cats were unpredictable either. I own a wolf, so I know of the risks but you don't see me over here advertising it either.

You said I didn't read a few posts up where it never struck. I wasn't even referring to anything you said, I never said it struck either, I said it could of and missed. You just don't know. I did not make an inaccurate generalization, I said it's a bad judgement call to sit here and advertise it. You could have your animal for 25 years, and it never bite you, and you deal with it several times a week. That doesn't mean you know your animal. Snakes can't learn, sure they can associate smells with experiences. If you honestly think you know your snake and know it won't do something, then you're either blind or found something that's legal to smoke, and have had way too much of it. Snakes are awesome pets, and I think it sucks that people look down on them due to fears and such. But snakes a primitive species with little reasoning skills. They can't be trained to sit or fetch, roll over or play dead. Snakes react mainly from instincts.

We can continue this all day long if you'd like but in the end I'm going to make you look bad. So that's your call.

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Again, read what he said. The snake did not strike. He said that, not me. If you missed the distinction between striking and picking something up, your reading comprehension is as bad as your grammar.

I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of animal intelligence, but showing your own lack of understanding on the subject is probably not the best way to "make me look bad." The ability to fetch, roll over, or play dead isn't evidence of intelligence. It's a response to conditioning. You're drastically oversimplifying something that you don't understand to begin with. The simple fact is that you can't train a python in the same way you would a cat or a dog. Attempting to do so is a reflection on the trainer's lack of reasoning skills not the animal. You CAN, however develop an understanding of an animal's natural behaviors, and consequently use that understanding and those behaviors to work with an animal. The fact that you obviously have no experience or education in that regard doesn't make it any less true. While reptiles are primitive and have less ability to reason than some animals, you're absolutely wrong in that they can't learn. In fact, you directly contradict yourself by saying they can associate scents with experience. That IS learning AND reasoning. It also shows some capability for abstract thought.

Aside from all of that, I would wager that nearly every keeper on this site has had a personal experience with just how quickly a snake can learn. One escape. That's all it takes. Even you can't argue with the fact that it's extremely well documented that a ball python will escape once, and attempt to escape the exact same way repeatedly.

It doesn't require smoking anything to learn about animal behavior. It just requires that you not be narrow minded.

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Originally Posted by patientz3ro

Again, read what he said. The snake did not strike. He said that, not me. If you missed the distinction between striking and picking something up, your reading comprehension is as bad as your grammar.

I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of animal intelligence, but showing your own lack of understanding on the subject is probably not the best way to "make me look bad." The ability to fetch, roll over, or play dead isn't evidence of intelligence. It's a response to conditioning. You're drastically oversimplifying something that you don't understand to begin with. The simple fact is that you can't train a python in the same way you would a cat or a dog. Attempting to do so is a reflection on the trainer's lack of reasoning skills not the animal. You CAN, however develop an understanding of an animal's natural behaviors, and consequently use that understanding and those behaviors to work with an animal. The fact that you obviously have no experience or education in that regard doesn't make it any less true. While reptiles are primitive and have less ability to reason than some animals, you're absolutely wrong in that they can't learn. In fact, you directly contradict yourself by saying they can associate scents with experience. That IS learning AND reasoning. It also shows some capability for abstract thought.

Aside from all of that, I would wager that nearly every keeper on this site has had a personal experience with just how quickly a snake can learn. One escape. That's all it takes. Even you can't argue with the fact that it's extremely well documented that a ball python will escape once, and attempt to escape the exact same way repeatedly.

It doesn't require smoking anything to learn about animal behavior. It just requires that you not be narrow minded.

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Okay, wow. Are you reading what I'm saying, or better yet maybe try to comprehend. I know he said it didn't strike, again. Here, since you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying, I'll bold and underline it for you. The snake could of struck and missed. In the process it could of bit his hand.. Do you see that now, or do I need to make it bigger? I know what happened, clearly because my 8 year old nephew could of understood that. What I'm telling you is what could of happened, which you're not understanding. It could of entirely went wrong. This is what I'm trying to get you to understand. No matter how long you've had a snake for, anything could go wrong. This is why I said it's a bad judgement call. You are clearly ignorant to the fact that a snake does not have this intelligence that dogs or cats or other animals have. I'm not sure what planet you grew up on to not understand common sense but wow. Responding to fetch and all that is because the animal was intelligent enough to be taught how to do that. You clearly have no understanding on snakes or knowledge of snakes, or let me rephrase that. You have little knowledge on how intelligent snakes are. You can try to develop an understanding all you want with an animal but in the end, that animal is in fact an animal, which makes them unpredictable. Snakes can learn simple things, escaping is something they do when they're cruising around or wanting to explore. Yes a scorpion can learn to escape too. I can tell you that from experience. I can spend as much time as I want with a scorpion and the fact is they will not learn other tasks. People pick scorpions up and put them on their hand and say, oh my scorpion knows me and won't sting me. WRONG. The fact is that there is a reasonable scientific explanation for this. In most cases, nearly all as a matter of fact a scorpion will not sting the ground/hand/finger it's sitting on. You put your other finger in front of it to touch it and watch what happens though.

People think that snakes enjoy being held. The more scientific explanation for this is that your hand is warm, they like heat because they're cold blooded, and this brings new territory to them. Yes, some get comfortable and will settle down and stay still, but it's not about learning at that point.

Yes hook training a snake helps them differentiate food from getting prepared to being handled. What you fail to realize and is so beyond funny because my 8 year old nephew clearly understands it more then you. BP's use vision as well as the heat pits and the sense of smell. So with the rat being warm, your hand being warm, your hand smelling like rats because you're holding one, and if your snake strikes and misses it's because it was going after one of the smells.

Yes while his snake didn't strike, and it may not strike for 30 more times, but that 31st time it could strike. You've clearly got to learn what you're talking about kiddo.

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Originally Posted by Neal

Okay, wow. Are you reading what I'm saying, or better yet maybe try to comprehend. I know he said it didn't strike, again. Here, since you're having a hard time comprehending what I'm saying, I'll bold and underline it for you. The snake could of struck and missed. In the process it could of bit his hand.. Do you see that now, or do I need to make it bigger? I know what happened, clearly because my 8 year old nephew could of understood that. What I'm telling you is what could of happened, which you're not understanding. It could of entirely went wrong. This is what I'm trying to get you to understand. No matter how long you've had a snake for, anything could go wrong. This is why I said it's a bad judgement call. You are clearly ignorant to the fact that a snake does not have this intelligence that dogs or cats or other animals have. I'm not sure what planet you grew up on to not understand common sense but wow. Responding to fetch and all that is because the animal was intelligent enough to be taught how to do that. You clearly have no understanding on snakes or knowledge of snakes, or let me rephrase that. You have little knowledge on how intelligent snakes are. You can try to develop an understanding all you want with an animal but in the end, that animal is in fact an animal, which makes them unpredictable. Snakes can learn simple things, escaping is something they do when they're cruising around or wanting to explore. Yes a scorpion can learn to escape too. I can tell you that from experience. I can spend as much time as I want with a scorpion and the fact is they will not learn other tasks. People pick scorpions up and put them on their hand and say, oh my scorpion knows me and won't sting me. WRONG. The fact is that there is a reasonable scientific explanation for this. In most cases, nearly all as a matter of fact a scorpion will not sting the ground/hand/finger it's sitting on. You put your other finger in front of it to touch it and watch what happens though.

People think that snakes enjoy being held. The more scientific explanation for this is that your hand is warm, they like heat because they're cold blooded, and this brings new territory to them. Yes, some get comfortable and will settle down and stay still, but it's not about learning at that point.

Yes hook training a snake helps them differentiate food from getting prepared to being handled. What you fail to realize and is so beyond funny because my 8 year old nephew clearly understands it more then you. BP's use vision as well as the heat pits and the sense of smell. So with the rat being warm, your hand being warm, your hand smelling like rats because you're holding one, and if your snake strikes and misses it's because it was going after one of the smells.

Yes while his snake didn't strike, and it may not strike for 30 more times, but that 31st time it could strike. You've clearly got to learn what you're talking about kiddo.

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Your 8 year old nephew could HAVE understood. Dude, if you're going to make a feeble attempt to be witty and insult someone's intelligence, at least make an attempt not to sound ignorant.

Maybe you should put that 8 year old on the computer. He's bound to make more sense. I'm really happy you're so experienced with scorpions. Unfortunately it's irrelevant. The fact that you haven't done ANY research of your own into the way a snake's brain works makes this entire conversation nearly worthless. You don't even understand conditioned response well enough to know when you're contradicting yourself. It's not even worth pointing it out anymore. You're obviously more interesting in remaining ignorant. Good luck with that.

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Originally Posted by patientz3ro

Your 8 year old nephew could HAVE understood. Dude, if you're going to make a feeble attempt to be witty and insult someone's intelligence, at least make an attempt not to sound ignorant.

Maybe you should put that 8 year old on the computer. He's bound to make more sense. I'm really happy you're so experienced with scorpions. Unfortunately it's irrelevant. The fact that you haven't done ANY research of your own into the way a snake's brain works makes this entire conversation nearly worthless. You don't even understand conditioned response well enough to know when you're contradicting yourself. It's not even worth pointing it out anymore. You're obviously more interesting in remaining ignorant. Good luck with that.

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You have done extensive research on a snakes brain? Please post your proof. Do you have a degree? No. I didn't think so. I don't have to make you look stupid, you're doing that fine by yourself. Studies have been done on snakes for years. In fact I have a snake that was born without any eyes. He hunts just like other balls. With heat pits and sense of smell. I'm sure I could hand feed him without getting bit. But all it takes is a misjudgment on his part to nail my hand. That's what you're not understanding. My nephew comment wasn't to be taken as.witty. He understands how they hunt, you clearly don't. There is a reason you don't see snakes starring in movies like horses, dogs, cats and like other animals which have the ability to learn complex tasks. I'm not saying they can't learn simple tasks.

Try this. Heat up a rat then rub it on your hand and put it in your snakes tank and wave your hand. Record this and you'll prove my point.

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Originally Posted by Neal

You have done extensive research on a snakes brain? Please post your proof. Do you have a degree? No. I didn't think so. I don't have to make you look stupid, you're doing that fine by yourself. Studies have been done on snakes for years. In fact I have a snake that was born without any eyes. He hunts just like other balls. With heat pits and sense of smell. I'm sure I could hand feed him without getting bit. But all it takes is a misjudgment on his part to nail my hand. That's what you're not understanding. My nephew comment wasn't to be taken as.witty. He understands how they hunt, you clearly don't. There is a reason you don't see snakes starring in movies like horses, dogs, cats and like other animals which have the ability to learn complex tasks. I'm not saying they can't learn simple tasks.

Try this. Heat up a rat then rub it on your hand and put it in your snakes tank and wave your hand. Record this and you'll prove my point.

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Again, you're completely missing the point. You're also contradicting yourself, yet again. And trust me, it's going to take someone much more intelligent than you to make me look stupid. I'll attempt to dumb this down so you don't need an 8 year old to explain it. I understand very well how snakes hunt. With the exception of your eyeless snake, vision IS part of the arsenal. For the sake of education, you should know that taste is also a factor. You know, the Jacobson's organ. Interestingly enough, not all of the triggers need to be present to induce a strike. Nor will the combination of heat, scent, taste, and sight guarantee a strike. Nearly all of us can relate seeing a snake take a prey item without striking. There's a lot of variables that can go into it.

FYI, I've recorded exactly what you said, and posted it here. The fact is, as you said yourself, they can learn to recognize scents. They can recognize the scent of food, and of things that aren't food. It's not rocket science. I'm not saying it's instantaneous, or that you won't get tagged in the process. I'm just saying it can be done.

There's a lot about animal behavior in general, and BP behavior specifically that you don't know anything about. Since you clearly can't accept the fact that you're not as all knowing as you'd like to think, there's no point in wasting my time pointing you in the right direction. No one is saying these snakes are going to be winning any reasoning contests anytime soon, but continuing to regard them as unintelligent and incapable of doing anything more than eating and sleeping is just ignorant.

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Originally Posted by patientz3ro

Again, you're completely missing the point. You're also contradicting yourself, yet again. And trust me, it's going to take someone much more intelligent than you to make me look stupid. I'll attempt to dumb this down so you don't need an 8 year old to explain it. I understand very well how snakes hunt. With the exception of your eyeless snake, vision IS part of the arsenal. For the sake of education, you should know that taste is also a factor. You know, the Jacobson's organ. Interestingly enough, not all of the triggers need to be present to induce a strike. Nor will the combination of heat, scent, taste, and sight guarantee a strike. Nearly all of us can relate seeing a snake take a prey item without striking. There's a lot of variables that can go into it.

FYI, I've recorded exactly what you said, and posted it here. The fact is, as you said yourself, they can learn to recognize scents. They can recognize the scent of food, and of things that aren't food. It's not rocket science. I'm not saying it's instantaneous, or that you won't get tagged in the process. I'm just saying it can be done.

There's a lot about animal behavior in general, and BP behavior specifically that you don't know anything about. Since you clearly can't accept the fact that you're not as all knowing as you'd like to think, there's no point in wasting my time pointing you in the right direction. No one is saying these snakes are going to be winning any reasoning contests anytime soon, but continuing to regard them as unintelligent and incapable of doing anything more than eating and sleeping is just ignorant.

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I never claimed to know it all. The fact is when you have a rat on your hand it masks the scent. Like when you get a snake that eats frogs, and you have to scent pinkies. They can see it's not a frog, but senses take over. That's what I've been saying the whole time.

My rufous beaked, they're diurnal and it was believed that they hunt mainly by vision. Now to dumb it down for you. The rufous beaked are the most hesitant snake to bite, and to contribute that they have 0 documented bites cases. So I wanted to test this theory and I laid a pinky flat in my hand. My little one gently ate off my hand while I held it. them it sniffed around and since my pinky smelled like food, he attempted to swallow my pinky. Now if you have anybody who has these snakes they will tell you they're never, ever aggressive. They also rely on vision more than balls because of the lack of heat pitts. So your ignorant argument is invalid. Even though a ball has smell, vision and heat pitts. They can still bite the hand because the hand smells like their normal pray. So again, before you open your mouth you should really learn everything. I never contradicted myself. I said they can't learn advanced stuff. Simple stuff yes. Sure they can differentiate food vs hand, but ask how many people have been bit by their bp who missed the rat they were holding. Learn kiddo, learn.

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Originally Posted by Neal

I never claimed to know it all. The fact is when you have a rat on your hand it masks the scent. Like when you get a snake that eats frogs, and you have to scent pinkies. They can see it's not a frog, but senses take over. That's what I've been saying the whole time.

My rufous beaked, they're diurnal and it was believed that they hunt mainly by vision. Now to dumb it down for you. The rufous beaked are the most hesitant snake to bite, and to contribute that they have 0 documented bites cases. So I wanted to test this theory and I laid a pinky flat in my hand. My little one gently ate off my hand while I held it. them it sniffed around and since my pinky smelled like food, he attempted to swallow my pinky. Now if you have anybody who has these snakes they will tell you they're never, ever aggressive. They also rely on vision more than balls because of the lack of heat pitts. So your ignorant argument is invalid. Even though a ball has smell, vision and heat pitts. They can still bite the hand because the hand smells like their normal pray. So again, before you open your mouth you should really learn everything. I never contradicted myself. I said they can't learn advanced stuff. Simple stuff yes. Sure they can differentiate food vs hand, but ask how many people have been bit by their bp who missed the rat they were holding. Learn kiddo, learn.

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Again, learn to spell. Learn to read, and then try doing both of them. You still have no idea what you're talking about, and the fact that you can't even see your own contradiction is making it more evident with every ignorant post. Keep calling me kiddo, that juvenile attempt to belittle me is really just reinforcing the fact that your nephew is the brains of the family.

I'll make this very simple. I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp, so I'll use small words. We're done here. You have no desire to admit you're wrong, and I have no desire to waste any more of my time reading your misspellings and contradictions. I really don't care if you agree or disagree. Your opinion is completely useless to me and anyone else who has a genuine interest in ball python behavior. Save your opinion and your breath.

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