i have one little red tail boa that i got in august. comparing her to her clutchmates she has hardly grown at all although she eats every week. she only weighs 100 grams and i have seen a couple of her siblings and they are at least 3 times her size or more. since she came home with me she has been a little shy but never scared and can be handled regularily with no problems. her feeding response is crazy. shes always ready to eat whenever i open the tub and if i put my hand in front of her face without a rat pink she would not strike.

so heres what happend. i opened her tub as usual and shes there flicking her tongue in strike postition. i slowly pick her up as usual and slowly walk over to my couch where my scale was placed at the time. i placed her on the scale and as im reading "100g" she struck at my face. she climed off the scale on to the table, hissing and puffing up, i carefully tried to pick her up as she kept striking and eventually bit me. i was shocked as she continued to open mouth hiss at me in strike postion and would continuosly strike in my direction when i moved. so im sitting in front of her, half shocked to realize how scary such a small snake can become within a matter of seconds, just watching her for a good 10 mins to see if she might calm down. shes not calming down so i put her back in her tub. i used winter gloves to pick her up because i didnt want her to bite me again. she didnt strike too much at the gloves and actually calmed down a little until i placed her back in her tub where she started hissing and striking at me as i walked by.

i am really surprised here because this came right out of nowhere. am i doing or did i do something to cause her to act like that? has this happend to anyone before? any advice would be greatly appreciated.