Ever Been "Shoved" By Your Ball Python?

[artgecko]

A couple of days ago I was cleaning my racks and needed to move my large adult female cinnamon BP. She was sprawled out in her tub and when I touched her she tensed and then rolled her body mass (mid section) to shove / push against my hand in a "go away" manner, lifting part of her body off the ground. She did this twice more before I managed to remove her from her dirty tub.

I have experienced BPs tensing up, flattening out, etc. but have never seen this kind of behavior in person. I did once see this sort of a behavior in a video of a reticulated python about a year ago. The person that posted it said that this was proof of the retic's intelligence, as it was not threatened by the human, but wanted the human to go away. I found that interesting at the time and had never seen anything similar until this week. Both the retic and my BP made a horizontal "wave" like motion with their body to do the pushing action.

I'm thinking that since her shoving me was not effective in getting me to go away that I won't see the behavior again. It's too bad I didn't get a chance to record it. I'll be curious to see how many people have experienced a behavior like this before.

[MCKINLEYW]

Our beast (adult male pied) does this everytime I barely touch him. Gotta love the control they have of all their muscles

[Dianne]

My oldest bp, Eli, will occasionally do this. Kind of telling me to bug off he doesn’t want to be bothered. The albino burmese I used to have did this all the time...she was a bit of a testy girl.

[SquirmyPug]

I haven't had either of my current BPs do that but years ago I had one that would occasionally push my hand

[Craiga 01453]

My BP has done that lightly, but nothing like my Kingsnake.

[bcr229]

I regularly see it from my balls, burm, and retics. My boas hardly ever do it; they will push but not actually bump.

[Luvyna]

My BP did this a lot when I first got him and he wasn't used to being handled at all. He will still do it occasionally if he doesn't want to be bothered. The way he shoves my hand away reminds me of a person irritably shrugging someone off when they're annoyed lol

[FollowTheSun]

Our big moody female doesn't bother with polite shoving-- she *may* give a warning hiss about half a second before she strikes. But that's a neat behavior you have observed!

[Sonny1318]

I have definitely experienced that with a couple of my boys. And two of my boys can be coaxed into eating when being moody by gently rubbing warm prey on their sides. They start literally start throwing coils (not sure what to call it) and also, I never “bop” their head with prey, never. Also on multiple feeds I’ve seen them hold one prey item up against the side of the tank while they take another. Their also notorious for springing their hides up like mini explosions (possibly just getting comfortable), but yes startling almost every time.

[Bogertophis]

I've seen this behavior multiple times but with bull snakes especially, never with ball pythons. The meaning seems very clear, as if saying "bug off" with a shove.

One time a neighbor had a large gopher snake near his house that he was afraid of & threatening to kill, so I went over to remove her. She was stretched out
& suffering from the heat. I touched her side softly, mid-body, a few times, just to let her know I wasn't a predator, & predictably she gave me a little "elbow".

After that I proceeded to just pick her up & she didn't resist at all, but when the neighbor leaned forward for a closer look, she lunged & hissed at him, & he jumped
back, lol. Snakes can tell a lot by how you touch them- she never tried to bite me, & I took her inside for a while, in some cool water in my bathtub to recover.

I can picture snakes in the wild doing this when member of some curious species sniffs their side & annoys them. Just like some of us are more outspoken than
others, some snakes are more likely to respond this way. If you really want your snake to do this for you to see, try bothering them* with a slight touch on their
side when they're in shed. (*not near their face, make sure it's mid-body)