BP Quirks / Personality Traits

Hi! This isn't really much of a question, but I'm intrigued. I adopted my BP (Julius Squeezer) about 7 months ago now and everything's great. Eats well, never seen him balled up - he's always been a curious snake. What I have noticed is a bunch of mannerisms which I'm pretty sure is unique to his personality - so I was just wondering what weird quirks do other peoples BP have? Also I'll list the things Julius Squeezer does here and I'd love to hear if anyone else's BP does the same thing.

1. I've read lots where people say they never see their snake drink or that it's always in the middle of the night. Not the case for J-Squeeze. I can literally fill up a bottle cap and place it near his head and he will drink from it on demand as if someone's just topped up his glass.

2. Most of the time he will just chill in the tank, but occasionally he will wrap around the branch near the tanks door handle when he wants to come out. Whenever I see him there I leave the tank door open (I've snake-proofed my room and the tank is on the ground). If I open the door when he's not near the handle he'll rarely make an attempt to explore. Best bit is, he'll explore round my room for about an hour or until he's done and then he will take himself back into his tank without any prompt from me. I've actually got a video of it because its so predictable - he does it every time. Home sweet home 'ey?

3. He lets you know when he doesn't feel like coming out. By this I mean he's puppy-dog tame, never bites or acts defensive. But he'll do this weird ripple with his body to kick your hand away. The only way I can describe it is it's like he has a human baby in there kicking you. First time it happened it was so unexpected that my hand flew into the heater at the top.

Is this anything new? Is it just ordinary BP behaviour or do I just have one cool lil' guy? Let me know anything strange your snake does too - love reading this kind of thing!

Yup, all normal BP stuff.

Also, lucky!! I've had my ball python 2 years now and never seen him drink! They're so sneaky!

Poo to PythonBabes! (Please have a sense of humor):please:
Julius Squeezer is just amazing :P He sounds like a little squiggle-person to me.
A couple of my corns will come to the door to get playtime. All of my Rosies will smack me away with the side of their neck if they don’t want to eat or be otherwise bothered. Nobody actually puts himself away without being in-hand, and that’s with me opening the door and moving them toward the opening.
I firmly believe that the more you interact with your JS, the more his personality will develop.
Give him a little boop for me. :handshake

2 of mine never ball up but other than that they almost follow the ball python text book. My large male wrote his own book. Probably the biggest thing with Renfield, my large male is his infatuation with my reading glasses. When he is on my lap, he just cruises around. When I put my reading glasses on it is straight up to my glasses to check them out. And to make it more weird he checks out the left lens of my glasses 90% of the time. I had to quit trying to watch him. He dang near drove me cross eyed.::)

It's a lot easier to observe individual behavior when you only have a couple snakes, huh! It's a lot of fun.

That's actually all totally normal, except for the returning to his tank on his own part LOL. Don't think I've ever heard of that for a ball python, but my scrub python is very aware of where her tank is and reaches to go back even if I have her out! She seems to recognize her enclosure as the "safe space" that I won't bother her. :D Though, it still makes sense even for a ball python, if they happen to sense that's where the heat and possibly familiar scent is coming from.

The 3rd one, all snakes do if they're irritated by the touching. Even my dumeril's boa does it. It's basically a "leave me alone!" LOL

Germaine would always go under her water bowl, not sure why. She just does. She's also a complete garbage disposal of a snake lol, thrown that tendency for picky eating out the window. Other than that pretty much normal bp stuff.

Julius Squeezer has got to be one of the best snake names I’ve heard in a while [emoji23]


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My BP sure doesn't follow textbook behavior! If he doesn't want to be messed with, there's pretty much no warnings from him. No body shoving, hissing, very minimal balling up, Khaa goes straight to striking and biting.

Which is why he only gets handled maybe every 2 weeks:rofl:

My DD’s BP has a preference for my kid. Took him out one night, kiddo walked up to us and snek lunged for her. She pets him under the chin and the top of his head. He just sits there and takes it. He never squeezes when around her neck and doesn’t ball up for her.

As for odd behavior, a friend of mine has a son with a BP. She’s offered us the snake on more than once because son never takes him out. Kiddo and I brought over some mice, as I breed my food. There is a huge water dish in the cage. Friend added water while we were there, and the snake jumped right in. Snek was diving under the water and blowing bubbles. Several times. Oddest thing I’d ever seen. Then when feeding, the snake was waving it’s tail back and forth in the water dish, continuously. Looked like the darn thing was a dog wagging it’s tail in excitement.

My shatter corn snake is like that with my son. Normally very flighty,and that’s once he’s wrestled out of the viv... Nate hits the room and I think the snake knows the vibrations of his steps, because if he’s awake, he comes front and center, pushing on the glass.
The snake comes right out to his hand, slithers around and hangs out for hours. This has been going on for 3 years.

Super strange but since posting this J-Squeeze has stepped up his drinking game. Didn't even wait for me to put the bottle lid of water by his head this time - instead, about 15 mins ago he just came straight to my hand and and drank while I held the water. It's one of the most adorable things he's done. (Obviously he has a large water bowl which he uses regularly so no idea why he does this. Probably just lazy and likes room service...)

I'm so glad people actually responded with their own snakey personalities. I'm actually making a game about snakes at the moment to try re-educate people on the "scary" adaptations they always see in films etc so I'm trying to animate sweet personality traits in each snake character's movements. It's really great to see what other stories are out there.

I've always suspected the third one was a normal snake thing but I could never find it when trying to search for snake body kicks so thank you guys for the info!

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Originally Posted by Codil7

Julius Squeezer has got to be one of the best snake names I’ve heard in a while [emoji23]

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Thank you! I also have the idea to get a Mexican black king named Scale-e-tor (like Skeletor from He-Man) and recreate snake mountain in the tank paha.

What a cool idea!!

Doesn't do it every time, but a few times now my BP has struck and squeezed his prey for about 2 mins, then he drops it, circles around it a couple of times like a dog getting ready to lie down, and then starts eating. I'm sure he's just teasing me as every time I'm like - 'Well, here's the start of the hunger strike'

My BP is kinda similar in the handling department, he likes to climb the branch I put in his enclosure, and he'll stay there for up to an hour until I take him out. Then, when I put him back, it can take him up to an hour to go back into hiding. Curious lil' critter! Also, same like yours, I've never seen him display any majorly defensive behavior when he doesn't want to be handled. The most defensive he's ever been is when I first got him, and he only hissed at me and didn't even lunge when I scooped him up then! I've had him for a month now, and I've only ever seen him hiss once! I guess my BP's a pacifist XD

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Originally Posted by Tonald Drump

My BP is kinda similar in the handling department, he likes to climb the branch I put in his enclosure, and he'll stay there for up to an hour until I take him out. Then, when I put him back, it can take him up to an hour to go back into hiding. Curious lil' critter! Also, same like yours, I've never seen him display any majorly defensive behavior when he doesn't want to be handled. The most defensive he's ever been is when I first got him, and he only hissed at me and didn't even lunge when I scooped him up then! I've had him for a month now, and I've only ever seen him hiss once! I guess my BP's a pacifist XD

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Mine's exactly the same with the placidness. I've never once heard him hiss - even when I took him to the vet for a casual checkup when I first got him. (I heard him make a "meow" noise a few times when handling and freaked thinking it was an RI whistle but he was fine. Just had water in his nose or something). Don't get me wrong he absolutely HATED getting his mouth wedged open as he's super head shy but he was just a big softy.

my girl did this the other night!! she struck and squeezed maybe 3 times, so hard you could see where she was squeezing! then she would spit it and smell around it in a circle. finally the last time she struck she held on and gobbled the rat up!

That sudden "pushing you away" they do is most similar to "bucking".

It is fast and hard. I've seen my hatchlings literally "buck off" the live mouse hoppers off of them, LOL !!! Its quite the effective movement.

Rarely do any of my adults do it. Sometimes I get a half hearted "push" if they do not want to be picked up.

However, during breeding season my male started doing this EVERY time I got him out of his enclosure to move him into the females enclosure. He would buck so hard I almost dropped him a couple of times, it was so unexpected. He threw quite the rodeo !!! LOL. Guess he was excited. He never did follow up with a bite or strike, though, just hard bucking.

My giant male Jag did it once, he was exploring on my desk behind my monitor (his favorite place to explore) and decided he had enough. He will move back over to where I sit and start slithering around me. I had him around my waist when he suddenly started bucking hard and repeadetely. I think he felt stuck behind the armrest or something from the chair touched him or poked him wrong? Either way, when a snake does that at 3000 gr its quite something ? He really startled me, because you feel the power they have in those muscles. I think he could "ping" an adult mice right across the room if the did that to one of them, LOL !!