I know, I know, I'm a wuss--but--I've yet to be bit by either of my BPs, and I'm still kind of afraid, even though I know it won't be that bad.

Anyway, I've got two juvenile gals, one a bit bigger than the other.

I've decided to focus on handling the smaller more, as the larger one is completely insane and tries to run away in very un-BP-like fashion whenever she's picked up. The sprinter (as I'll call her) is by far the more expensive of the two, so I've decided to not really handle her too much as I'm worried she'll jump right out of my hands and end up injured, and I need her to breed successfully. I figure I can better acclimate one of her offspring that I'll have from birth, and as for the mom, as long as she lets me do stuff in her tank and move her about for cleaning, that's fine.

Aaaaaanyway, I went in her cage to clean some poop this weekend and for the first time ever, she hissed at me! I've never even seen her try to strike, just evacuate at full speed or occasionally ball up, and the hiss was totally new to me. I was surprised how loud it was!

So my noob question is: how seriously should I take the hiss? Does that mean she's more likely to strike at me now?

Lastly, she's in a fairly new enclosure and I was about to do her first monthly full-tank cleaning. Obviously I'll have to completely remove her from the enclosure for this. Since she doesn't handle well and I'm terrified of dropping her (again) if she freaks out on me, I was thinking of trying to prod her into a pillow case, and then using that to transport her to a plastic tub for the time I'm cleaning.

Thoughts? Should I get some kind of snake hook to pick her up if I'm concerned?

Again, I'm a self-admitted noob with snakes, so even the most basic advice is helpful!

Thanks!