My fiance and I rescued a skinny, undernourished burm from a person who was essentially hoarding snakes this past August. He was under 4' long and had been fed on chicks... sometimes 3 or 4 at a time, every couple weeks. He was very thin and covered in mites. He was also behaving very aggressively with the person, but we chalked that up to inappropriately small prey items and starvation.

We brought him home with us and got him into a nice 4' x 2' cage and started feeding him appropriately sized prey. He has bulked up since and is now a bit over 4' long and of a healthy looking weight.

The problem is that since we moved him into the 4' x 2' from the 20 long quarantine tank, he has become VERY aggressive. He hisses if you so much as touch him with the hook. He thrashes and snaps and bit my fiance when we had him out a few weeks back, drawing significant blood. I realize that bites happen, but this snake has become intolerably aggressive. We'd eventually like to have children, and I for one am not going to be comfortable with a large aggressive snake in the house.

I'm not sure what to do at this point so I thought I'd seek the advice of more experienced keepers.

I've been trying to handle him regularly, but at this point it's hard even to get him out. He hisses continually when he is out, and acts this way even right after feeding. He's up to medium rats at this point-- 1 every 10 to 14 days. I've been heating them up and just laying them on the substrate, as I read in a book, to discourage aggression.

We have other large snakes that are not an issue for us-- including an 8' male BCI and a 5.5-6' Hogg Island.

If anyone has any thoughts, I'd welcome them. He is a normal burm, so rehoming him will be tough, and I honestly am not sure how I feel about putting what could end up being a bad problem off on someone else. At this point I almost wonder if we shouldn't consider putting him down... this world is pretty much at capacity for normal male burms-- an aggressive normal male burm just doesn't seem to fit.

Any thoughts will be much appreciated... I'm really just thinking out loud/ venting here.