New Scrub - Very Frightened / Nervous

Zig I think you may have misunderstood my post. I would not sit with Wallace and free handle him. Anything two
Handed was the same as what you recommended.

The perch often alleviates you having to use 2 hands and shifts the behavior to focusing on the perch a bit more. It is not a part of you and often they secure themselves to it and seem less stressed than being fully handled.

It is also easy to direct the perch away from your body and face.

I’m in full agreement with you on moving while free handling them.
Mine only wants to run now and he’s a speedster 😂

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Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

I'd respectfully disagree with Zinc and Gio just a little. There's no way I'd try to sit down and handle my scrub. They move too fast, they have a very long strike range, and they can be unpredictable. You have to constantly move with them to make sure you're keeping the pointy end away from your face at all times. I prefer to keep both hands on mine or to have him wrapped around one of my arms. I used to use a perch to handle Klauss when he was smaller but now that he's close to 6ft he's gets heavy quickly and he also likes to strike from a perched position so it becomes another fight. I let him rest on our bird feeder to get pics and approaching and removing him was a challenge. I'm glad your first handling session went fairly well. It should get better. I very rarely get tagged anymore and I only get musked about half the time.

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That’s fine :)

I’ve never handled a scrub python so maybe I shouldn’t have commented .. it’s just something I’ve done over the years with nervous Royals and young Burms and Retics ..they just seemed so much calmer when they felt secure ..


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Yay! Glad to see your first handling sessions went well! This is a super fun species to handle - they definitely keep you on your toes 😉 Luckily, she’s long enough that she’ll easily be able to wrap around your arm (or whatever is nearby) for security and have many feet of body left for exploring! The bright side is, you don’t have long hair for her to pull and tangle herself in. Sounds ridiculous, but really is the worst part of handling a kraken like that! And mines not even close to 8ft.

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Originally Posted by Team Slytherin

Yay! Glad to see your first handling sessions went well! This is a super fun species to handle - they definitely keep you on your toes 😉 Luckily, she’s long enough that she’ll easily be able to wrap around your arm (or whatever is nearby) for security and have many feet of body left for exploring! The bright side is, you don’t have long hair for her to pull and tangle herself in. Sounds ridiculous, but really is the worst part of handling a kraken like that! And mines not even close to 8ft.

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Definitely a bright side, as my ETB loves to get up close and personal, but not sure I'll let this girl do that for a long while.

https://i.imgur.com/3qOXpnr.jpg

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Originally Posted by Team Slytherin

Yay! ...The bright side is, you don’t have long hair for her to pull and tangle herself in. Sounds ridiculous, but really is the worst part of handling a kraken like that! And mines not even close to 8ft.

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:rofl: No scrubs here but I can sure relate to the hazards of long hair! It truly doesn't take very much for a snake to tie hair into knots & then pull...:O

When my guy did get a little older and acclimated, I was able to handle him easily. They become too heavy for a branch at a certain point.
https://i.imgur.com/ldb0YAO.jpg

Things changed significantly since this photo. I was bitten again January of 2019.
https://i.imgur.com/LjX3PAR.jpg
He hit bone with this bite and it was only a fraction of a second.

Cleaned up version.
https://i.imgur.com/Vj0YgZK.jpg

I imagine a scrub would have a similar type of bite.

Mine is now 9 feet long and very strong. I don't let him close to my neck any longer. He can strike out of his cage roughly 4 feet if he chooses.

I think when Zincubus was talking about sitting with the snake, he was probably thinking about size. I agree when these guys get larger, having some of their body settled on something is not a bad idea.

This guy is much larger than your scrub here, you can see he wrapped my leg, much like a branch. He used it as an anchor and explored with the rest of his body. He grew a lot between 2.5 and 3 years surprisingly.
https://i.imgur.com/XliSNRV.jpg

I'm decent sized and in good shape, but I'd say he is about the maximum I care to handle alone.

Your scrub is bigger than I initially thought when I read this thread.

There are some decent gloves on the market if you are having real issues.

The musking is something I have also experienced. I actually had it straight into my mouth when pulling him out of the cage to show my daughter's friends.

Not one of the finer moments in my reptile handling career.

Keep working with yours and things may improve.

Males at maturity may swing the other way unfortunately.

That's a fairly gnarly looking bite. She has bitten me once due to a feeding mistake; it wasnt that bad, but she has some thickening up to do.

And luckily, she only went all over my socks, not my mouth haha

First off, while that looks like a nasty bite, GIO your boy is lookin’ fierce!

And yes, Bog! I finally had to resort to putting my hair up before handling sessions. At least then he looks like a cool hair accessory instead of a mutant making its nest in my hair. His scales are so weird that when he gets tangled, it damages them. They look like ruffled feathers or something...super strange. Fun fact, he just clocked in at 6 ft tonight!

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f31188ec03.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...3c6d66f367.jpg


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Team Slytherin

First off, while that looks like a nasty bite, GIO your boy is lookin’ fierce!

And yes, Bog! I finally had to resort to putting my hair up before handling sessions. At least then he looks like a cool hair accessory instead of a mutant making its nest in my hair. His scales are so weird that when he gets tangled, it damages them. They look like ruffled feathers or something...super strange. Fun fact, he just clocked in at 6 ft tonight!

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...f31188ec03.jpghttps://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...3c6d66f367.jpg


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That's exactly what my spotted python does to me! :rofl: And she is only about 3.5' but is she ever strong, & constricts like crazy. At least my other snakes would just
be "passing thru" but not her, oh no! I started to think she was going to be there permanently. :D

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Originally Posted by Bogertophis

That's exactly what my spotted python does to me! :rofl: And she is only about 3.5' but is she ever strong, & constricts like crazy. At least my other snakes would just
be "passing thru" but not her, oh no! I started to think she was going to be there permanently. :D

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Hahaha it’s like they think they own us or something! Let’s be real; they do.