Sudden extreme aggression in all pets??? Help??

So i have owned snakes for a while now. I have 5, and all of my snakes were fantastic except for my boa who was a bit nippy. I have 4 ball pythons and a bci. About 2 and a half, maybe 3 weeks ago if not more, i moved all of my snakes into a rack system. I still check on them daily, interact with them daily, but now, EVERY single one is aggressive. Every one. "Kicking" me, hissing, striking, nothing has changed except for the fact that they went from open glass tanks to a rack. And they stay aggressive, even once i have them out. They all have 2 hides, 78° ambient temp, 90° hot spot, fresh water every other day, on aspen, fed appropriate sized food once a week, and like i said, I interact with them daily. This is so, so unusual and I haven't been able to find anything like this on the net. Please help, i love my snakes more than anything and want to interact with them but they are all just insane now and I don't know what changed :tears:

I am a new BP owner but it sounds like they are all unhappy. Going from a tank where they can see outside their enclosure to a container where they don't interact with anything and are in solitude. Maybe keeping them in a see-through tank kept them happy, especially seeing the other bp's? Not sure what to tell you, but that's my two cents.

I would treat moving them like getting a new bp, and not handling them at all for the next week or two and see what happens.

You just moved them into them new enclosures. Give them some time to adjust.

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Originally Posted by melcvt00

I would treat moving them like getting a new bp, and not handling them at all for the next week or two and see what happens.

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I totally forgot to mention in the original post, and because i have gotten 2 comments saying this, for the first week i did leave them alone. My apologies i was totally unclear

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Originally Posted by ballpythonluvr

You just moved them into them new enclosures. Give them some time to adjust.

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My apologies, i forgot to specify but i did give all of them a full week to adjust :( i forgot to mention that in my original post

No problem. Just give them some more time. Some snakes are more easily stressed and ball pythons tend to be like that.

That's really interesting. I had just the opposite experience, when I moved them to a rack system they all mellowed out. What kind of rack is it? Are the tubs solid or clear? I have an ARS rack with solid grey tubs, I've seen people have success with the clear tubs but I would think that would stress out the snakes. Is your rack system stable, does it move around at all? The rack I have weighs several hundred pounds and is as solid as a brick. Maybe a wobbly rack system would do that? Does it have any weird smells? I don't use any hides at all, but I do know that when my snakes are under a hide and I take it off of them real quick sometimes they freak out and get very aggressive.

I would try taking out all of the hides (as long as you don't have clear tubs). I usually slide open my tubs and if I see my snakes all balled up with their head buried I don't mess with them. If they pop their head out and look like they want to explore I take them out. Now I don't use any hides at all, I just use the built in water dish system with Dixie cups, nothing else. I even have very small hatchlings in big 70 series tubs, they just ball up in the back and are perfectly happy and have been eating twice a week. Sorry to hear about your aggression, there's nothing worse than an unhappy snake.

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Originally Posted by cchardwick

That's really interesting. I had just the opposite experience, when I moved them to a rack system they all mellowed out. What kind of rack is it? Are the tubs solid or clear? I have an ARS rack with solid grey tubs, I've seen people have success with the clear tubs but I would think that would stress out the snakes. Is your rack system stable, does it move around at all? The rack I have weighs several hundred pounds and is as solid as a brick. Maybe a wobbly rack system would do that? Does it have any weird smells? I don't use any hides at all, but I do know that when my snakes are under a hide and I take it off of them real quick sometimes they freak out and get very aggressive.

I would try taking out all of the hides (as long as you don't have clear tubs). I usually slide open my tubs and if I see my snakes all balled up with their head buried I don't mess with them. If they pop their head out and look like they want to explore I take them out. Now I don't use any hides at all, I just use the built in water dish system with Dixie cups, nothing else. I even have very small hatchlings in big 70 series tubs, they just ball up in the back and are perfectly happy and have been eating twice a week. Sorry to hear about your aggression, there's nothing worse than an unhappy snake.

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Thank you for all of the tips! Ill try them out and let you know how it goes. My tubs are almost clear, but have a tiny bit of a "foggy" or translucent-esque effect to them. It is very stable, i can walk around and even bump into it without having any movement. The only weird smells I could think of would be my geckos, but my snakes were acting this way before i got the geckos. Usually my snakes look all antsy and ready to explore, until i go to pick them up or let them out, at which is the point where they either frantically try to get away, or hiss and bite. I used to be able to handle them perfectly fine, im not sure what happened.

This is actually normal behavior. You have given your snakes a nice, warm, comfy home in a rack and when the tub slides open they don't want to leave it so they act all pissy.

Eventually they will adjust and learn that even if you remove them they will be going back shortly, and they'll settle down.

When I moved into a rack I had an increases feeding response for a bit. Because I fed right away then left alone until next feeding. They assumed that me opening the tub was food (or taking out water/spot cleaning which I did when they slept in the am) and would be super aggressive right of the bat but then retreat and I'd grab them then. As other answers said it may have been stress from moving, coulda been an increased feeding response (or acting pissy), or another one it could be is they can smell the bci. Not sure how plausible this is but sometimes I have my snakes near my bci cage ( which is right next to my bed) and the bps will become super defensive near her. Idk i could be seeing things though [emoji14] I am not really sure on the range of vision/smell so that could be a negligible factor

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In my opinion, being moved from an "insecure" (not necessarily insecure, but more open) place to a very secure place, and the contrast between the secure place and coming back out is what's causing the change. So while being in tanks before, they were always kind of "exposed" to activity, so taking them out is not a big change to their environment. Now that they're very enclosed and secure in racks, when you open the rack/tub, it's a more abrupt change in their security/environment, so it surprises them by contrast. If that makes sense.

Another possibility is an increased feeding response (as others have mentioned) which seems to happen to a lot of snakes when moved to a smaller tub. But since they're hissing, striking, and "kicking", not striking and coiling or following your heat trail like in a feeding response, I'd say it's less likely this reason.

I know you mentioned the temps are the same, but I was thinking that an increase in temps could cause this sort of thing and perhaps it wouldn't hurt to check again? Just a random thought.

I'd wonder if it's true aggression vs. a healthier feeding response, which will manifest itself in the same way. Are they striking at the tubs as you walk by? I've had some snakes due this when I'm scenting the herp room prior to feeding. As mentioned earlier, it's pretty normal behavior.


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