Thanks everyone for your responses so far! It's a wealth of information that i wouldn't have been able to find out on my own otherwise.

As far as "just getting it" I assumed responsibility recently but the cage itself has not been moved. My roommate is leaving the apartment and leaving the snake behind.

I'll give it another shot tomorrow with a glove. Any suggestions on a type of glove to use? This is kinda goofy but the only glove I really have is an oven glove which might be a bit cumbersome to handle the snake. As for pulling the snake out then I'd like to make it as calm as possible, so if it in fact does strike at my glove, should I continue to pull him out? Or should I maybe be waiting for it to figure out that it's not food?

Since the previous owner pretty much never pulled it out of the cage and judging from how it acted the day prior to feeding, I would agree that it is a feeding response. If he's awake and sees the lid slid open, his head is up and ready to strike, not to get out.

I'm about to purchase a new tank and accessories since the stress is probably way higher considering his enclosure. The heating is satisfactory but there is not a sufficient hide. It's one of those half-logs you see from Petco.

Thanks for the analogy with paper cuts. I knew that it wouldn't be something awful getting bitten but didn't think it was as insubstantial as a papercut! But I do really, really hate papercuts.

Quote Originally Posted by Kaorte
If you feed outside the enclosure, your chance of getting bit goes up drastically. The more times you put your hand into the feeding process, the more opportunities your snake has to bite. I feed all my snakes in their home enclosures and I have never been bit
Kaorte, What you suggest seems to contradict almost every resource I've seen in my research on handling procedures for a BP. Most resources suggest handling the snake outside of his main enclosure, and feeding in another. Using forceps seems to be a popular feeding method. Can anyone else back this up?