how often do you hold your snakes?

[8_Ball]

Once or twice a week. Not the day of feeding or 48 hours after feeding.

[Chayanin]

I pretty much hold her everyday except for the 2 days after she has eaten and during her shed cycles.
I have my method of handling her though. I never pick her up/out from her house.

What I do is I open up her house and let her come out by herself (I handle her at night only).
95% of the time she will come straight for my hands or sniff at my face
if she doesn't feel like coming out then I leave her be.
I handle her for about 10-15 mins.

She never gets stressed ^^ Such a lovely and curious girl

[maudie]

Personally I feel like handling snakes is really important to keep them happy and docile. I try to hold them as much as possible, I'll also take them on walks to the park and let them explore in the grass (with constant supervision, of course) Sometimes people will gather around and ask questions and hold them. It's good to know they do really well in large groups of people. I also like to give them fresh air once a week. Other than that I try to hold them every day, except after they eat. I try and wait until they poop for obvious reasons😂 Since I'm feeding them more often now than before in an attempt to put some more meat on them, I don't hold as much. But still a few times a week. And when I take them out it's usually for a couple hours. They're all incredibly sweet snakes. Other than all that, I take them out at least once a week (usually more) to give them a bath. I especially do this when they're going in to shed. I also feel like frequent baths/rinsing are important to keep them clean, hydrated, and to ensure they all have good sheds. Also, they can get pretty stinky otherwise

[Rodinosaur]

I bother mine a lot! I have two ball pythons, one is a voracious eater, the other is new and is a picky eater. The voracious eater I will handle about four days a week, and I will keep him out for an hour or more at a time, sometimes multiple times a day. He's very tolerant of me! The picky eater I will handle 3-4 days a week, but only 15-30 minutes at a time. I aim to socialize them so they're very relaxed and tolerant of me booping them on the nose!

[frogvet]

I handle them for short periods of time every day that is appropriate. Mine are young and eating ~ 5 days so there is a considerable chunk of time they are digesting. They are both relatively new so I limit handling to a few minutes, just letting em get acclimated and used to the handling. If I take them out for cleaning or any other purpose I always let them unwind and slither a bit before they go into the temp tubs.

[voodoolamb]

I rarely have handle mine. Once every other week or so when it's time for a thorough bedding change.

[EL-Ziggy]

I handle each of my snakes once a week for about 10-15 minutes.

[redshepherd]

For my BP's and boa, about twice a week. For the GTP, I'm predicting once every other week. LOL

[CloudtheBoa]

I try to handle 1-3 snakes a couple times a week. I've found once the snake is accustomed to handling they don't really revert, so handling isn't too important on that front. I do like to handle them for my own selfish reasons and to photograph them, as well as to get weight and length updates etc. to track health. There are a few individuals like Bud and Morzan, who are strictly hands-off outside of health inspections/cage maintenance. Bud because he's had a bad habit of going on feeding strikes, and with a year of constant eating I don't want to mess that up, and Morzan because I am currently working with him to slowly bump him up from a regurge and hopefully to eventually get him on bigger prey. Until his digestion issues stabilize or disappear, I won't be handling him much. Which could take years at the rate he's going. I also don't really handle the garters because they're tiny, makes them difficult to handle. I prefer to watch them move about in their tanks and chase me around the room. haha

[cchardwick]

For me it really depends on the snake. I have an Australian Woma python in an 80 series tub with a clear window on the front. He seems like he often times wants to get out of that tub and come out to check out the room. Usually when I'm done feeding the rodents if I see him pacing the front of the tub I'll take him out and put him on the table so he can watch me clean up.

I have another small black and white king snake that is super aggressive in his cage and poops and musks when you pick him up. But he is so small that even if he bit you he wouldn't' do any damage. I try to handle him the most to calm him down, probably at least twice a week. He seems like he is mellowing out a bit.

Having 18 snakes it's hard to handle them all that much. Now that I switched my whole collection over to Reptichip I'll pull each tub once a week, take the snake out and put him in a spare tub with paper towels and let him watch me spot clean his tub and spray it down with water.

And I try to handle my dwarf reticulated python a bit more during cleaning day, she is getting really big and doesn't want to go back in her tub right away most times, so I'll take her for a little walk around the house. This week I gave her a couple baths in a plastic tote with warm water to get rid of a stuck shed, then brought her up to the living room for a few minutes and let her crawl on the carpet floor before putting her back in the tub.

I usually don't handle my ball pythons very much besides just moving them to the spare tub on cleaning day. My ball pythons never seem to want to come out of the tubs, they are perfectly happy in there. And they are usually slow enough that even for the aggressive ones I can easily avoid getting bit, unlike some of my other snake like King snake or the retic, those guys are quick to turn on a dime and should have more time being handled to avoid bites.