agitated ball python

can any advise why my ball python constantly strikes at persons outside his cage. he is able to be handled however when he is in his hide or basking and you get too close he strikes. we are beginning to get frightened.
thanks

Perhaps he feels too exposed and it's stressing him. You using a glass tank? In the meantime I'd give him a little privacy - maybe tape some newspaper or something of the sort up around the enclosure and give him some time to unwind. If it's in a heavy traffic area where a lot of people are going by (and the vibrations of their footsteps) you might want to move it. How are temps and humidity? Does he eat regularly?

he hasn't missed a meal, the temps and humidity are fine. He is in my sons room, not very much action around the tank. He can be held without striking.

But he strikes at the glass when people approach, right? I'd still say cover it up. Does he have the same reaction when reaching in from above to get him out?

Try smaller hides and some crumpled newspaper in the tank.

Also, what are his temps?

He sounds very stressed and insecure inside his cage and it can be fixed with the correct changes to your husbandry.

-adam

Ive tried the "crumpled paper" techniqe and it worked very well for my agressive little corn snake.

It might not cure your snake of those agressive or "moody" tendencies but it might help.

Since you said everything thing temp wise is fine and there isnt much traffic i would do the crumpled paper thing.

Your snake just might have that kind of moody personality.My corn snake still gets a little crumpy from time to time.

Just a thought, we are newbies with BP's but parents of 4 kids...could it be that maybe without your knowing it your son or his friends might have taken to tapping on the glass to "get the snakes attention"...I know we've had to speak to our younger two about doing that at the local pet stores...they don't mean to upset the snakes but it just seems a kid's natural reaction to get a snake's attention this way and I would think if it did happen that might have set the snake up to be a bit snappy when someone approached the glass...kids don't understand about snakes and vibrations (heck I had to ask in another forum how a snake actually hears LOL) so we've talked with our 4 kids about this and plan to keep our new BP in our bedroom for awhile as our house is pretty active *understatement of the year*

LOL ... kinda like when my son gave his beta milk because it "looked thirsty" ... kids ROCK!! :D

-adam

LOL Adam.....*note to me...put Ping the betta even higher up than 4 year can reach*...we have to keep telling our 2 teenagers that it's NOT nice to teach the 4 year old to call one of our male rats "Big Balls Magee"!

That's so wrong, yet so funny :)

You should see a hairless male, they are even more funny looking. (I'm sorry Sneezy, please forgive me for making fun of your old-mannish body).

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

LOL Adam.....*note to me...put Ping the betta even higher up than 4 year can reach*...we have to keep telling our 2 teenagers that it's NOT nice to teach the 4 year old to call one of our male rats "Big Balls Magee"!

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LOL ... even better was the day that my son and his friend decided that the beta wanted to play with hot wheels! ... PETA would probably lynch me for some of the crap that my kid gets away with! :D Isn't it great to be 4? :twisted:



-adam

Omg why are we posting this late at night...OH YEAH...it's the only time we get any real quiet time...whoooppeeeeeeeee!....LOL


Another 4 yr old boy story then I'll quit LOL...our youngest has gotten the boy rats, Cracker and Rocky, to ride around the house in his big plastic dump truck...but we think the rats have actually trained him in a vain attempt to get even closer to that cutsey girl rat across the room from them (and off limits to them till she grows up a bit)

I must be tired if I'm contemplating the evil intentions of my male rats! Becky pls pls post a pic somewhere of Sneezy, I've never seen a hairless rat and hey do they breed rats w/o tails yet? Everyone likes our pet rats but many go ICK over the tails.

Yeah, they breed manx rats, but they have alot of spinal and pelvis problems.

Here's a pic of nekkid Sneezy-butt:
http://img82.echo.cx/img82/6703/sneezycute3jh.th.jpg

Here's him curled up in his hat-hammock with his non-eye side showing:
http://img201.echo.cx/img201/7356/sneezycurl26sv.th.jpg

and his daughter, Emily:
http://img201.echo.cx/img201/7934/strongarms5ji.th.jpg

They are so funny. I have too many of them, but what's a girl gonna do? :) You might want to get your female rat a friend since they do much better in pairs or threes. Also, if you want a healthy, cheap food mix to make for them, I can give you the recipe. This is only if you're buying the pre-packaged junk from the pet store(which they can't digest much of it anyway). Just trying to save you some money :)Hope you like the pictures, and if you ever want to talk "rats", let me know, I have too many pictures of mine...Hehe

Thanks Becky, those hairless are DARLING! and nope I don't feed standard pet store rat food, stuff is mostly crap they toss around their cage...we mix our own after doing some research online for different recipes plus hand fed treats "from the table" and bones to knaw on...we are breeding Cookie our berkshire blaze next month and keeping the best girl as company for mom....we don't plan to breed the rats more than one or twice...they truely are just family pets...actually was happy with just the 2 boys but saw Cookie in the pet store recently and she was so awesome looking and perfectly tempered I had to bring her home immediately. Kinda funny how one can love snakes that eat rats but still have rats for pets isn't it LOL. I'm sure some people would think that sort of strange.

can someone explain the crumpled paper advice. my ball spends most of his time in his hide. should i make it smaller. while we are at it what should the temps and humidity be. the hotter side of the tank is about 90 degrees while the temp at the other end is around 70. humidity is a 55 percent.

also he doesn't strike when you go in to take him out.
thanks again for all the help.

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Originally Posted by samspython

can someone explain the crumpled paper advice. my ball spends most of his time in his hide. should i make it smaller. while we are at it what should the temps and humidity be. the hotter side of the tank is about 90 degrees while the temp at the other end is around 70. humidity is a 55 percent.

also he doesn't strike when you go in to take him out.
thanks again for all the help.

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Bump your temps ... 82-84 on the cool side, 92-94 on the hot.

Smaller hides are better, ball pythons feel most secure when they can cram themselves into a tight space where they are being "touched" on all sides of their body.

For added security you can take some pieces of newspaper and loosely crumple them up and put them in the cage.

-adam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Bump your temps ... 82-84 on the cool side, 92-94 on the hot.

-adam

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Are these ambient temps, or belly temps?

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Originally Posted by Isshinharu

Are these ambient temps, or belly temps?

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There really shouldn't be that much of a difference.

For example, the heat tape in my racks is set at 94 degrees and the ambient air temps on the hot side of the cage is 93.

-adam

Yeah, you definately wanna get those temps up a bit. Be careful that you are measuring them accurately too though because my Hissy got nasty for a week and it ended up being because I had placed my probe in the wrong spot & had made the temps in her tank WAY too hot.

I think a couple of other questions that you need to answer are, as I think Smulkin asked, are you using an all glass tank? If you are, do you have any of the sides covered with something? If the snake can see out all around the tank then in his/her mind, their little area goes on & on for as far as they can see. If you cover up a two or three sides of the tank, it will give a greater sense of security. Also, how big of a tank are you using!? What size is your snake? If you have a little baby snake in a big old tank, there is a good chance that it does not feel at all secure because there is so much area around it. Just some things to think about.

FWIW Adam, my tank must be a little wierd. I have had the belly heat on the warm side of my tank at 93*F while the ambient temp was only around 85*F. I am not real concerned about it cuz Hissy is thriving right now! She is eatin like a champ & she is back to being the docile snake that I remember!!

Yeah mine are much like Eddie's
Belly heat 92/93 ambient 85/86
been like for year and half.

Side-Bar to Adam
Ok after hearing the Betta stories I am a little concerned about Osiris :)
( just kidding)

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Originally Posted by jotay

Side-Bar to Adam
Ok after hearing the Beta stories I am a little concerned about Osiris :)
( just kidding)

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LOL ... I'll tell you, that snake is a trooper!! .... My son takes Dash out to show EVERYONE that comes over and 4 year olds aren't exactly "gentle" .... she just does not care at all, doesn't even hiss ... and you would not believe how much she is eating ;)

-adam