My Ball Python Keeps Biting Me

I have this 3 year old ball python named Melvin who has always been a pretty passive snake but recently he has been biting me out of the blue. The most recent bite was last night after handling him for about 20 minutes. When he bit me he didn’t strike he just opened his mouth and sunk his teeth into my hand. I feed him about 36 hours prior to this so I don’t know if he could still be hungry. I feed him a medium rat every 2-3 weeks. If someone has an idea of why he is doing this the help would be greatly appreciated.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LArch32

I have this 3 year old ball python named Melvin who has always been a pretty passive snake but recently he has been biting me out of the blue. The most recent bite was last night after handling him for about 20 minutes. When he bit me he didn’t strike he just opened his mouth and sunk his teeth into my hand. I feed him about 36 hours prior to this so I don’t know if he could still be hungry. I feed him a medium rat every 2-3 weeks. If someone has an idea of why he is doing this the help would be greatly appreciated.

---

Do you have other animals, dog, cat? If so any chance that you would have pet another animal and not wash your hands?

One thing you can try is feed a smaller prey 55/75 grams max every week and see how it goes.

I made sure to was my hands before but I do have these small bracelets that alway stay on my wrist and he bit probably 2 inches away from them. Could that be a reason why?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LArch32

I made sure to was my hands before but I do have these small bracelets that alway stay on my wrist and he bit probably 2 inches away from them. Could that be a reason why?

---

Could be, it's a very strange type of bite, which I had that happen before from different animals but it's not your typical stress induced or feed bites which would be strike and release or strike and constrict.

I will see if removing the bracelets will help. I will let you know how it goes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LArch32

I will see if removing the bracelets will help. I will let you know how it goes.

---

Snakes have a keen sense of smell & if you wear the bracelets all the time, I think it's possible they may have picked up some odors that startled him for some reason.
And also if they're shiny...they may seem like a predator's threatening eyes to him (or even prey?), who knows? I do wish snakes could just tell us what they're thinking sometimes, lol...

Slightly aged post, but i'm curious for an update