handling for pet owners

[LittleTreeGuy]

I have a question... moreso directed to those of you who have snakes as a pet, rather than just for breeding... How often do you handle your BP? I've read a lot of different things and thoughts on this. Mine is young, about 2 months old and I handle her almost every day for 5-10 minutes. I don't bother her at all for at least 24 hours after a meal though. I've only had her a little over a week, but I can see her responding to me better already. She used to just lay coiled in my hand, and the past two days, within a minute, she has started to smell around and explore a little. Is this her actually exploring, or just trying to get away? Since she will crawl around and then just hang out in my hands/arms, I assume she isn't too overly fearful, but I still keep the handling to a short amount of time then put her back in the cage. In MY mind, i would think the more a snake is handled from a young age, the better they would handle and grow accustomed, but what do I know... this is my first snake, and while I've been researching out the wazoo, I don't have any first-hand experience over the long-term as most of you do.

Here she is, finally stretching out in my hands...

[DVirginiana]

What you're doing sounds good. As long as the snake is eating/hiding/ect. normally, you don't have to worry about stressing them with moderate handling. Other than giving mine a break after eating, I like to handle mine once a day even if it's just for a few seconds. IMO that's a good way to catch any potential health problems before they get bad.

[LittleTreeGuy]

Yea, no problems there. She spends about half of her time in the warm hide, and half in the cool hide... and sometimes in the paper-towel roll, right in the middle. She eats well.

[gaitedappy]

You'd be able to tell if she were not relaxed or trying to get away. Personally I like to handle my snakes for a few minutes at least every other day, even if it is just a quick once over to check for health issues.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[distaff]

My kings get two to three days rest after eating. Otherwise, I try to handle every day. If they don't seem to want it, I leave them in peace. Other days, they contentedly hang out in my hand. About a 15 min session, usually evenings when they are most active. These two get busy after dark, climbing and searching everywhere. I figure they might as well come out for a few minutes.

[danipanda]

Every snake is different, some are fine to be handled for long periods of time every day and others will become stressed with too much handling. I handle Noodles every day (except for 48 hours after a meal) for sometimes over and hour and she's totally fine with it. As long as your BP is behaving normally, then what you're doing is fine.

[redshepherd]

It totally depends on the snake, it seems... some snakes might be easily stressed out with handling. But many are totally fine with handling every day for 30 minutes even.

I handle mine every day for some 20~30 minutes, or up to an hour, depending on what I feel like... they really don't mind. And I don't handle the 2 days right after a feeding. Cake (around 500g) eats every 9 days, and Yukon (250g) eats every 7 days.'

I find that with handling every day, mine become MORE tolerant/trusting, and mostly just sit in my hand/arms and look around. They move around a little, but always come back to my hand, even if they have a choice to leave.