What get you tagged?

so, i was doing my monthly tank cleaning this afternoon, changing the whole substrates, wiping tank's wall etc. my 6yo daughter asked to play with her snake and few minutes later she was crying saying that Bally bit her. when i came into the room, the snake is in ready-to-strike position, eyes on you, no flicking tongue, head high.
i was trying to figure out why did she tag her because our noodle is usually very docile. she doesn't even get pissy when my daughter stroke her head nor picking her up when she's busy exploring etc.
while cleaning her wound, i noticed that her hand was smelling of raw egg. she was eating quail eggs shortly before. i remember telling her to wash her hands and maybe she wasn't washing thoroughly that the smell was still there.
is it possible that it was because of that? just curious...and to not repeat it in the future.
anyway, after much crying on my daughter part (mostly because she's shocked that her beloved pet-friend bit her), i asked her whether she'd done something to piss her off. she said that she didn't recall any.
just now (5 hours after) i took our noodle out. she was totally relax on my palm, i stroked her head to see how she reacted and as usual she just didn't even escape it. then i called my daughter and asked her to gently pet the noodle from behind, she was hesitant but touched our noodle nonetheless.
i explained to my daughter once again that it wasn't the snake's intention to bit her. that Bally most probably was just confusing her with food. also reminding her again about respecting the snake and not doing something to piss the snake off.
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In Bean's case? Existing near her, lol. She's gotten a bit better about it though.

Coming home drunk from a night out always get me tagged if I decide to play with them, even if I washed my hands :rolleyes:

Then you wake up in the morning and wander why there's blood all over the place...

#1 reason, being stupid. Any bite I have ever gotten could have been avoided.
#2 intentional. Proving to the animal that I don't care if it bites me.

Usually I get tagged during feeding, I have some very aggressive feeders that will latch on anything warm when you open their tub on feeding day.

Basically they wait at the front of the tub and get the hand that opens the tub (my temperature is higher than most people so I have always been a bite magnet because of this), the last one lost two teeth because of it so now I open the tub with a hook, not because I fear for myself but because losing teeth can lead to serious issue.

Only has happened once to me and it was definitely my own fault. I was dangling the rat in my BP's cage and it slipped out of the tongs. Not thinking about it, I reached in with my hand to pick it back up and he got me. Wasn't too bad but now I remember not to stick my hand in there during feeding.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Usually I get tagged during feeding, I have some very aggressive feeders that will latch on anything warm when you open their tub on feeding day.

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This. One of my hogs thinks anytime you open the lid it's feeding time and went through a phase for almost a month straight where she wanted to strike every time the lid opened. She's better now but my female ball is more of an excited feeder who will strike as soon as she smells food and has missed and tagged me a few times.

I was tagged by my BP once, and I still don't know what exactly made him strike that day. He was on my bed, facing me and I slowly reached my hand in front of him for him to climb on like he often does. He wasn't in the typical "S" strike position and I made sure my hand moved slowly and deliberately. For some reason, he tagged me, but just a defensive bite and didn't latch or even draw blood.

My Kingsnake has come very close a few times during feeding when he gets excited and misses his prey completely. When I was at the reptile shop checking him out I handled another sub-adult King and was tagged 6 or 7 times in the 3 minutes or less that I had her out. I decided pretty quickly that snake wasn't coming home with me. So I asked about this guy and they said "you think she's nippy, wait til you meet him." He even said if I wanted to handle him I had to get him out myself. I took him out, we hung out for a half hour in the store and he never nipped once, still hasn't to this day.

When you're being a good owner and you clean a wound your bp got from a mouse, they will be jerks and tag you, twice, on your pinkie

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thanks for sharing guys! good to know more about bp [emoji16]


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Moving around whenvthey are done constricting their prey. Everything registers to the jacobson organ as food, my body is warm, boom.

I was seriously that dumb at one point -_-

I have never been tagged... ever. And I have kept ball pythons for many many years.. longer than this site is old.

I wldnt leave my 6 year old unattended w any snake... a 6 yr old isnt going to understand what may have pissed off the snake to begin with. But..to each their own.

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For me it's usually being careless as the snake in question can't do any real harm, my non-venomous of course. More particularly my rat snake as I know if I go to reach for him while he's watching my hand he will bite me.

With my venomous stuff I'm way more cautious, I keep hooks nearby. Although I do feed some of the stuff on I'm guessing 8" hemostats, it's only certain snakes that I do this with being my rattlesnakes which are still babies, my bush viper and my spitting cobra. My rhino viper I only use the 24" hemostats.

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Originally Posted by Jeanne

I have never been tagged... ever. And I have kept ball pythons for many many years.. longer than this site is old.

I wldnt leave my 6 year old unattended w any snake... a 6 yr old isnt going to understand what may have pissed off the snake to begin with. But..to each their own.

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usually i'm always present when she's handling her. just that one afternoon while i was cleaning the tank that she brought the snake inside the room which only about 6' away and with door open. the whole thing happened under three minutes since she took the snake. my suspicion is her hand smelling of raw(ish) egg, but no way to know for sure.
i'll definitely won't let it happen again, the unsupervised thing, no matter how close the distance is [emoji846]


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just to update: my daughter has taken off her sticky plaster by herself as she told me that her hand is no longer in pain.
and today she's back to handling her snake, it was short but still proud of her for doing that.
as for our noodle, still happy and healthy like usual, no sign of stress (thank lawd!). tomorrow is feeding day so she'll be happier i guess [emoji16]


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For the record.. it wldnt have been bc your 6 year olds hand smelled like eggs... ball pythons do not eat eggs..they do not recognise eggs as a meal.. think abt this... u have to warm rodents to what temp for the snake to take interest..an egg doesnt have the "body temp" of a live animal unless its mom just hopped off them. Even then, dnt see a bp eating them. If you dont believe me.. put one of those eggs in w ur bp..see what happens.

Now, had she been handling rodents, I can see a bite potential.

Likely, the snake was startled into biting.

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And rawish eggs being fed to a child.. do u kno what salmonella is??

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Originally Posted by Jeanne

And rawish eggs being fed to a child.. do u kno what salmonella is??

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I assumed she was speaking of canned quail eggs which are precooked, but it is just an assumption on my part.

not to get off topic but quail eggs don't have the salmonella like chicken eggs do. some have it but in low concentration. Some studies say that chicken eggs don't have salmonella inside but on the egg shell and contaminates the egg inside when cracked. I still don't trust raw eggs though.

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Originally Posted by Jeanne

For the record.. it wldnt have been bc your 6 year olds hand smelled like eggs... ball pythons do not eat eggs..they do not recognise eggs as a meal.. think abt this... u have to warm rodents to what temp for the snake to take interest..an egg doesnt have the "body temp" of a live animal unless its mom just hopped off them. Even then, dnt see a bp eating them. If you dont believe me.. put one of those eggs in w ur bp..see what happens.

Now, had she been handling rodents, I can see a bite potential.

Likely, the snake was startled into biting.

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to be fair, i said that it's 'my suspicion' and i also asked about is it possible it being the reason since the first time i post this. i heard that occasionally they feed on birds in the wild so in my silly mind: 'birds = avian = quail so maybe the scent of something raw from quail?'
no, she doesn't handle rodents nor partake in feeding, just watching for a bit usually.
it can also because startled into biting, i accept the possibility and i also said that there's no way for me to know for sure. that's why i ask for people to share what get you bit, so i can learn more.
and no, the quail egg is cooked. to me quail egg have stronger smell of kinda raw chicken egg even when it's cooked. i never said that the egg is raw just that it kinda has the raw (hence the -ish) smells. i don't exactly know how to put it in other word that's more appropriate than raw-ish, sorry for my limited word knowledge.
i live in asia and here eating raw/runny egg is common. while my daughter haven't eaten any raw/runny (half cooked) egg, i personally ate both though not frequently. i just get my egg from a trusted supplier and only when i know it's fresh. thank you for the concern [emoji846]


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Asia... I though so as soon as I heard quail eggs. The Asian side of my family is always putting them in things. I understand your difficulty with trying to describe the smell because they do have quite a strong odor compared to chicken eggs. In the US the word that most would be able to relate to would be gamy which means having a wild taste/smell.

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Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

Asia... I though so as soon as I heard quail eggs. The Asian side of my family is always putting them in things. I understand your difficulty with trying to describe the smell because they do have quite a strong odor compared to chicken eggs. In the US the word that most would be able to relate to would be gamy which means having a wild taste/smell.

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Thank you! Glad that someone understand how smelly quail egg can be. Gamy...will definitely remember this [emoji16][emoji16]


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Originally Posted by Aste88

Coming home drunk from a night out always get me tagged if I decide to play with them, even if I washed my hands :rolleyes:

Then you wake up in the morning and wander why there's blood all over the place...

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hahaha, that was my experience with my first tag, but it was just a defensive strike. came home early morning, wanted to see Yellow, i noticed he moved some stuff around in the enclosure and reached in to fix it but apparently too fast, as soon as my hand was near the substrate he smacked my thumb. no blood, not even a mark on me. i was a little over served and was just like "yeah alright jerk, be that way" and let him be.

next morning i was like "...omg he struck at me!"

The only time was one week into owning my first snake, just a big newbie mistake... I brought home a live mouse, put it next to his tub, and he was all ready to strike and eat. And for some reason, I decided it would be a nice idea to change his water before feeding him LOL. So I stuck my hand in and he got me! But it was just two tiny dots of blood, because he was a hatchling.

My boa tagged me when I was feeding last week. Just a quick harmless tag. She loses her mine when she smells food. The first time in years that I've been bitten.

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Originally Posted by cletus

My boa tagged me when I was feeding last week. Just a quick harmless tag. She loses her mine when she smells food. The first time in years that I've been bitten.

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I tend to get tagged in batches ... I can go for years without a nibble but then get tagged three or four times in a short period of time .

Maybe it's when I'm distracted or maybe I just get too complacent !?

It's usually my Kings or baby Boa who gets me .


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