Quote Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne View Post
Sorry. I'm a bad skimmer and get in a hurry sometimes....especially with my screwed up schedule. I guess my main concern with your first post was that you said the snake would not associate the keepers hand with food if fed in the cage. I just don't think they care what's in their cage. I don't think it has anything to do with aggression but more that kingsnakes will eat every day if you feed them. Anything in their cage that moves is fair game.
What we are having is a common misunderstanding. Let me re frame the argument. When we feed in a separate enclosure to avoid cage aggression we are saying that we want feeding to only happen in a tub that way when the snake is in the tub it will think "OK I am in the tub and now is the time to strike at stuff" We then hope that when the snake is not in the tub it thinks "Ok something is moving over there but I am not in the tub so it must not be food, I bet its just a hand I won't strike at it." The problem is thats not at all what goes on for the snake. The snake decision to strike has nothing to do with where it is. Its not associating the tub with feeding or your hand with food. Its seeing movement, its hungry or scared and its striking. Once we stop thinking that cage aggression is something we can fix by feeding in a tub then we can start addressing the real problem.