HELP! I think my bp is angry but im not sure.

[Kaorte]

I am sorry but that video was just hilarious.

OBVIOUSLY a ball python cannot eat you. At some point, the snake will figure that out and let go. The guy wasn't even bleeding! It couldn't have hurt that much. I am sure you have felt much worse pain in your life then a possible ball python bite.

As for the biting with no warning? That doesn't really happen all too often.

[BPsRule]

Something similar to what happened to the guy in the video happened to me about a year and a half ago. BTW, I've had my BP 7 years now and this is the ONLY time he has ever bitten me. I have to admit that I reacted very poorly to the situation, and I had already owned him for 5 1/2 years at that point, so it's not like I was brand new to caring for a BP. Anyway, I reached in my BPs tub to do a little maintenance, like I always do. I washed my hands and everything, so I didn't have any kind of mouse scent on me. Well, this particular time I reached in he decided that my finger looked like a juicy mouse. He shot across the tub and latched on to my finger. It completely caught me off guard and I pulled him off of my finger and ran into the bathroom to wash my finger off and stop the bleeding. Fortunately, everything was fine with my BP after this incident. I took him to a vet to make sure of this, because I wanted to make sure I didn't do any damage to him. Unfortunately, I now have a numb finger from the experience because the incident caused nerve damage in my finger. You know why I now have nerve damage in my finger? It's not from him biting me. It's from me reacting very poorly and pulling him off of my finger the way I did. I basically tore up the nerve in my finger by doing this. If I had stayed calm and just slowly worked with him in that situation, I'd still have feeling in that finger and wouldn't have risked harm to him as well. The point I'm trying to make with this story is that BPs are wild animals and can be unpredictable like any wild animal can be. When you decide to handle a BP, or even just get close to one when doing tank maintenance or whatever, know that 99 times out of 100 you'll be fine. There's always a chance that a BP can still bite you and you have to be prepared for that. When you reach into the tank to either pick him up or something else, take a good look at him and see what kind of mood he is in. Move slowly too. The day he bit me, I made the dumb mistake of not checking him out first so he could have put himself in a "strike position" and I didn't realize it. Plus, he was due for a feeding when this happened too. A hungry snake can just react in a way where he sees something move and decides that might be something he might try to go after. Not trying to scare anyone with this story or anything, but I'm just saying that they aren't cute cuddly animals that can be trained. They are wild animals that can be unpredictable sometimes and have to be treated as such. Going into this hobby, you have to realize that. We're all human and may react poorly to a situation. I did. I learned from it and still have my BP today. Learn from your mistakes and move on.

[ls1goat04]

id be more careful girls... if that ball python wraps you and bites you i dont think you will make it out alive.

[dr del]

Heh,

This is one reason why videos on youtube get on my nerves a lot of the time - there is never enough context or information to go along with them.

how could that not look terrifying, that snake actually thought he could swallow that guys hand and was seriously going to try to do so. you guys are insane if you think thats cute. whats worse is... you notice how he had to turn the video off before he got the snake off.... you really think he just had a nice calm talk with the snake and convinced him to let go??? I think not!! he probably had to smash his head or do something really bad to him to make him let go...

How adorable.. i guess i shouldn't overreact.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that before he showed the ball pythons he showed youtube his rodents.

I actually suspect he stopped the tape so the cameraperson could hold the body of the snake so he could reach for a spray bottle to squirt the snake with.

And, seriously, look at the size of the snakes head and the size of your hand.

I've made a Stupid Feeding Error with a nice big girl and got my hand struck, wrapped and constricted. No head smashing was required except mine against a wall for being so stupid.

Oh and they don't have fangs they have teeth - and they are very sharp but also very short. Any wounds will be superficial and very hard to see when you have wiped them clean.

also why did the man just let the snake hang on like that why couldnt he get the snake off him? WHat would of happend if he started pulling on the snake or put his finger in the snakes mouth?


so i guess just because we are here asking questions and its our first snake & the fact we get scared sometimes means we should just give up and get rid of it? While we at it we should of got rid of our feral cat (she use to scare us at first) we resuced that was suppose to be put to sleep by the humane society, or the dog wispurs saved from an abusive house (scared us at first with his fear growling), hell maybe i should get rid of wispurs (she scares me when she gets mad sometimes) and everything else in my life that might give me some kind of a fear issue.

He let the snake hang on like that to avoid hurting it. Their teeth angle backwards to help them hang on and if you just yanked your hand away you could end up pulling out a few of their teeth - which could be a way for an infection to get started.

You can usually get them to let go with a squirt of water or a little alcohol - but it's easier if you have free hands.

i guess we dont fully understand what happend in that video

the snake didnt give any warning signs he just bit down i guess they hiss if its defensive but if ur scented with prey like that or really hungry they just bite down?

If you look the snake was giving him warning signs from the second he opened the tub. The way it was poised when he first opened it was a sure sign - if he had tapped it gently on the top of the head with a water bottle or something it would have been snapped out of feeding mode and he would have been less likely to have been bitten. Or, you know, not smell like it's dinner.

As a side point I think he was mistaken about that snake only eating live - if any of mine had done that I would have been relatively certain they would eat an appropriately heated F/T.

Snakes or wispurs and exotica?

Play nice.


dr del

[BAMReptiles]

how could that not look terrifying, that snake actually thought he could swallow that guys hand and was seriously going to try to do so. you guys are insane if you think thats cute. whats worse is... you notice how he had to turn the video off before he got the snake off.... you really think he just had a nice calm talk with the snake and convinced him to let go??? I think not!! he probably had to smash his head or do something really bad to him to make him let go...

How adorable.. i guess i shouldn't overreact.

if youre talking about smashing its head in you dont need to own a snake....ever....just saying

[WingedWolfPsion]

What Del said. Remember what I told you about a snake's attitude when it's looking for food? The beginning of that video clearly shows it, when he lifts the lid--the snake moves forward, its neck in an S-shape, and it's rigid. It's tongue-flicking a lot. Snakes smell by flicking their tongues out to collect scent particles, then transferring them to the Jacobson's organ inside their mouth (they don't smell using their noses).

So, right at the opening of the video, we see that the snake is hungry. Then he picks it up. The snake explores a bit, tongue flicking, then grabs his hand. I truly think he must have had his hands on some rodents--the snake was very precise about grabbing his hand after it had thoroughly smelled it.

It is a very non-aggressive grab, actually. Could this be a snake used to eating frozen/thawed? It did not have the attitude of expecting the food to fight back. That was more the move of a snake about to swallow a food item that is already dead.

I also noticed that this fellow had previous wounds on his hand, which leads me to wonder if this whole thing was deliberately staged. Keep in mind, people will do crazy things to make a cool video. Handling dead rodents and then picking up the snake, KNOWING what it will do, is an easy way to film a snake bite.

The advice you're getting from Del is also VERY important. If you are bitten by your snake--and make no mistake about it, EVENTUALLY it will happen--do NOT pull away. If you pull away, not only will you hurt yourself a LOT more, but you may hurt or even lead to the death of the snake. Breaking its fragile teeth off in your skin would not be good for EITHER of you. So don't panic if it happens. Stay calm, and be still. You can gently try unwrapping the snake, starting at the tail, run it under water, etc. In reality, the snake will let go of you as soon as it realizes something is wrong. It doesn't want to eat YOU...once it figures out that it's biting YOU, it will let go on its own.

A bite like this one was not an act of anger, aggression, or 'mean-ness'. The snake actually made a mistake. It was an accident. If you snake bites you this way--forgive him. He didn't mean it.

The reason the snake does not let go immediately is because a python's instincts are VERY strong. When they grab ahold of something and it moves, their instincts tell them to constrict it until it stops moving. This isn't something they can control--it's hardwired into them, and it's their nature. Once that powerful instinct releases, then they can make the decision to let go. They cannot control this instinct, you see? They have no choice but to constrict if something they identified as food in their mouth starts moving.

Snakes have poor vision, and they rely on scent and warmth to identify what is around them. This snake thought it smelled food (perhaps it did!). It just carefully picked up what it THOUGHT was food, using its mouth. When the 'food' started to move, it got more confused...its instinct to constrict was triggered, so that's what it did.

Off camera, most likely the snake was simply carefully unwrapped, and let go of his hand once it was no longer properly constricting him.

[BPsRule]

What Del said. Remember what I told you about a snake's attitude when it's looking for food? The beginning of that video clearly shows it, when he lifts the lid--the snake moves forward, its neck in an S-shape, and it's rigid. It's tongue-flicking a lot. Snakes smell by flicking their tongues out to collect scent particles, then transferring them to the Jacobson's organ inside their mouth (they don't smell using their noses).

So, right at the opening of the video, we see that the snake is hungry. Then he picks it up. The snake explores a bit, tongue flicking, then grabs his hand. I truly think he must have had his hands on some rodents--the snake was very precise about grabbing his hand after it had thoroughly smelled it.

Yeah, I went back and watched the video again and you could definitely see the snake showing all of the warning signs as soon as he opened that lid!

It is a very non-aggressive grab, actually. Could this be a snake used to eating frozen/thawed? It did not have the attitude of expecting the food to fight back. That was more the move of a snake about to swallow a food item that is already dead.

He actually said in the video that it gets fed live! He said, "This is what happens when you have a snake that has only ever eaten live food. He sees something moving and thinks it's his dinner."

I also noticed that this fellow had previous wounds on his hand, which leads me to wonder if this whole thing was deliberately staged. Keep in mind, people will do crazy things to make a cool video. Handling dead rodents and then picking up the snake, KNOWING what it will do, is an easy way to film a snake bite.

I would agree considering the warning signs the snake was showing and the handler seemed to totally ignore that.

[exotica0095]

quick question sometimes when i hold bb he does that s shaped thing just while hes on me and im moving around he doesnt hiss or flick his tongue but ive seen him in that postion a few times when im moving him usually?

[BPsRule]

Here's the follow up video. As you can see, there's some blood on his hand but nothing major! He was able to get it off eventually without having to smash it's head in or anything like that! If you read his comments below the video on YouTube, he basically says it wasn't that big a deal pain wise and he's had worse from other animals. So, his hand is still in tact and the snake is fine as well.

YouTube - The aftermath of the ball python bite

[dr del]

Hi,

The thing to look for is the amount of tension in the muscles.


dr del