Hi,

New to the forum .
We have had our ball python for one week(3/12 feet), which we adopted from a family who owned it for 7 years with no problems. We were told that he had been fed about 10 days prior to bringing him home and has been feeding once a month. We left him the first day to get settled, then thought we would gently begin to introduce ourselves by gently touching him. Then the next day we got him out and after around 20 minutes of exploring quite happily he struck my son on the shoulder. All happened very quickly and left a minor wound. We returned him to his enclosure and left him for a day. A day later we brought him out and offered a bathas he has a little shed still left on his head, seemed happy and returned him around 20 minutes later. For two whole days he slept in the same spot, we increased the temp as it had been getting colder in the house. He became very active in the evening so we got him out and introduced him to a new hide box. He seemed to like it and explored a little. An hour later we tried to put him back in the enclosure for the night when he displayed a striking pose. We backed off and when we tried once more he struck my husband, latched onto the fleshy part of his hand and begun constricting up his arm. struggled to get the blighter off as he was constricting tight and rewrapping himself around his arm. We tried to encourage him to open his mouth by holding behind the jaw with no use and tapping his nose, hoping we can get some advice on what we may have done wrong or what we need to do. How can we check to see if he is injured in anyway? Should we think about feeding him earlier than one month? Also he is now hiding in his enclosure.

Would be grateful to anyone who can help.

Jasnik