I have a super pastel male that's breeding for the first time this year. About a week ago he shed and I immediately put him in with a female, a couple of days later straight from that female's bin to another one. He'd been out of his cage for almost a week.
I put him back in his cage and he goes wild. I mean he's having violent spasm, and throwing his water bowl around. Total chaos.
I take him out and he shoots straight up and is still convulsing.
I put him in a holding area while I take it all in and hope that it's not something that I brought back home from the reptiles show. In the holding area he calms right down and acts normal. I check out his cage and notice that I didn't take his shed out at the beginning of the week.
Suddenly it dawns on me that his behavior looks very much like the behavior of male ritualistic fighting.
I take the now calm snake and put him back in his cage. Again he flips out. I take him out and a 30 seconds late he's OK.
I put him back in the holding area, clean his cage with soap and water (remove the shed) and prove my theory right....all aggression is gone.
It seems that he didn't recognize his own smell after being out of his cage for a while. Very interesting.
Has anyone ever experienced this?
Denis
denjenn reptiles
www.pythonregius.ca
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