BP Behavior

[ssg150102]

Very wordy question, you can just skip to my questions at the bottom if you please.

Hi. I am a new BP owner. I have owned this BP for a week and I have a lot of questions. I want to know everything there is to know, so I read a lot and I visit all of the pet stores and ask questions, and I find that a lot of what I hear is different from person to person. I guess the best indicator of what is good or better or worse would be my own BP which is what brings me here. He doesn't do anything I expect of him so I dont know what take of it.

In particular, he NEVER balls up! Except for when he is in his hide resting, which is most of the day, he doesn't ball up. I know that balling up is a defense mechanism, so on one hand I'm glad he isn't threatened. but when i pick him up he doesn't appear to want to be in my hands. it seems as if hes always trying to get away from me. he hasn't tried to strike at me, he hasn't bitten, i'm the only one who handles him at this point so again, he doesn't appear threatened, but he doesn't appear comfortable.

so my question is

1. should i be concerned that he doesnt want to be held by me? i bought him a week ago, i didn't start handling him until sunday. i pet him in his tank a few times, than i pulled him out and walked him around the house, and put him back up about 10 min later. than i pet him a little bit more that night. i pulled him out again yesterday, did the same thing, except i let him out a little while longer. today i did the same thing, i let him out for about an hour though. i let him crawl or whatever on the floor and in his feed tank for a few minutes.

2. is he trying to get away from me or is he trying to explore? i ask the difference because he NEVER just sits in my hands. when i handle the snakes at the pet store they are fine just wrapping about my arm or sniffing me, but its a struggle with Osiris though.

3. should i wait a little longer to handle him, or should i handle him more? whats the best way to gain his trust and make him more comfortable with me?

[DVirginiana]

So generally you don't really want to handle them at all for the first week or two after they move in with you (ha, sounds like a roommate agreement or something). That's a very stressful change for them, and the most important thing is that they settle in enough to start eating. Once they start regularly taking food is a good time to start handling. Nothing wrong with occasionally examining him to make sure everything is okay or doing tank maintenance or anything like that, but otherwise it's good to give them a couple weeks to settle in.

I personally think they learn to trust their keepers and can even be curious about their surroundings (including you), but that they don't really 'enjoy' being held. It's just something that they don't mind and sometimes is interesting for them. Moving around a lot while handling is a minor sign of stress that will probably lessen as he gets older (young ones are more nervous) and gets to know you. If he REALLY didn't want to be held, you'd know it lol.

Once he settles in, I think handling a short amount every day or so is good. They get used to you, but it's not enough to really stress them out. Some people handle their snakes for really long periods of time, but I usually limit handling to a max of about fifteen minutes. That's just personal preference really; by that time both me and the snake are kind of getting bored and antsy.