Flat out mean?

[PigsnPythons]

Does anyone else have a ball python that is just flat out mean? One of mine started out with a very strong feeding response that evolved into food aggressive...that evolved into aggressive. I'm talking if you open his tub, he leaps out of it trying to bite you! Its like I have a white-lipped python in a balls body...lol I have 9 other balls and NONE of them are even remotely aggressive, so its not like a husbandry thing... So if you have/had one, anything to calm him down a bit?

[Jerhart]

That is interesting. All my balls are calm, I have some who are hissers, but will never strike. I have found that hatchlings are most aggressive a couple weeks out of the eggs. They seem to have that "Im out, now bring it on!" mentality. But then they calm down and realize they are a ball python

I dont think is a husbandry situation. All my balls have their own personality too...it could be that your ball associates you with feeding time. You said he is an aggressive feeder, so thats my guess is he just associates you with feeding time, so hence the lunging out of the bin and going after your fingers

Do you handle him regularly? Does he calm down once you have him out?

[PigsnPythons]

No, I don't handle him regularly because of the aggressiveness. I started wearing gloves when I opened his tub, hoping to take away the heat signal..nope didnt' matter...he tags the gloves every time I deal with him. And, I like to weigh all of my snakes regularly just to keep good records, so I get him out and put him on the scale...and he LUNGES off the scale at me...so no he does not calm down once he is out...lol

[Jerhart]

...may be just a matter of taking him out, with you gloves at first, and setting him in your lap for a while. Maybe while watching tv or just typing on bp.net , this will help him get use to you. He will probably strike at every little movement you make at first, but he will eventually get tired of striking and either just sit there or try to get off your lap. He just may take a while to calm down. Because right now his routine is, when he sees you, you mean food. So you need to break this routine and make another routine where you just handle him...just have patience. Good Luck!

[Freakie_frog]

Most of my big females are this way they lung at the front of the tub when I open it and will bite any thing that touches them. I typically just take the whole tub out and gently pick them up. Once I get them out of the tub their fine..99.995 %of the time

[sjsexotics]

I have a big bad mean male lol he is just like that he loves to try to eat me or anything else that comes near him I got him like that and I think it is funny

[boost3d05]

my cinnamon female is a B*tch! she hate everything....even mice...she will wound them, but wont actually constrict around them and eat them

[waltah!]

I know most people don't do this with bp's, but have you tried hook training? He will have that response broken with a head rub from the hook. That will soon mean that it's not feeding time Lift him out with the hook and let him sit for a minute. Hey, if it works for retics...

[frankykeno]

Do a search using the word "brannagh" under my nickname. You should find some old posts about her when we first got her out of a pet store (where she'd been abandoned). She was back then 1,900 grams of wild, crazy, strike at anything, you couldn't even safely change her water dish snake. She'd slam in her tub even if you walked by her tub, come out of a deep sleep in her hide just to try and bite me, in fact at first she couldn't even stop patrolling her tub long enough to rest. She'd exhaust herself with constant slithering around. Even freshening up her water was a major deal back then. It took both Mike and I to feed her so that we didn't get bit every time. A big, stressed, hard to manage female ball python.

Today Brannagh is 3,400 grams and my 7 year old can handle her (with supervision of course). It took some months but setting up a stable routine for her, simple, consistent where her attempts to bite us or thrash around when we had to handle her didn't get her anywhere. We did glove up and we did get bit but not often. We often would toss a small facecloth or spare glove on her head long enough to get a grasp right behind her jaws so she couldn't turn and bite while grabbing her firmly with the other hand. She fought like you wouldn't believe but eventually with calm, determined handling she gave it up. We had a rule that she only went back into her home when she was calm (even if that was for 2 seconds). Eventually the calm period outweighed the fighting and now she's a big lovely snake.

Don't give up. Some snakes never accept a lot of handling but even if you can get your snake to be safe to work around, you've achieved a major goal. We never for a second thought Brannagh would be a snake you could handle easily, we just wanted her calmer/less stressed but she's come so much further than we ever imagined. In that process she taught Mike and I a lot about snake handling so we'll always be thrilled we took her out of that pet store situation.

[RoyalGuardian]

Yikes! My friend had a really mean ball way back when but he calmed down after a while. He switched it to F/T so I think thats what did it.