Here is the story of my 2 bloods as far as temper and feeding response!
I have two bloods a sumatran blood and a sumatran short-tail. My blood which I purchased from kara last december has always been extremely docile. He had one stage of fussiness when it came to eating when he was around 4-5 months old, now he eats anything I put in there (pre-killed/FT)... the funny thing is that he has not striked at a pray item since his bout of fussiness. Although I haven't, I could literally hold the rat in my hand and he would start eating it with no worries. Basically I use hemostats to hold the rat above him, he opens up and I drop the rat right in. He doesn't even bother to constrict whatsoever.
On the other hand, my short tail was extremely mean when i got her. Every time I held her I got tagged! So I just got a pair of gloves and held her often, as she calmed down I would slip the gloves off and bare hand her. After about a month and a half I had no problem taking her out bare handed, and she has not struck since. You have to let them know what you are doing, and handle with care and confidence. The strange thing with her is she refuses to eat in front of anyone. I have to leave her with the dead rat in the dark and she eats it on her own. If I try to entice her she only strikes, and does not eat. She becomes more irritated than anything else.
Sorry about the novel, but to summarize it is going to depend on the particular blood you have. It helps to get it from someone where you can get a background on parents or basic info in general. It can be frustrating at certain times, but to me hands down the coolest snake around!!
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