When you work with the animals everyday you start to be able to read them . If there having a bad day then its going to be harder to move them and clean. I have always handled mine alone unless I was very lucky and had someone over willing to help me clean snake cages but that doesent happen to often lol. But I always have someone in the house with me so if something ever did occur then I could yell for help. With the bigs though sometimes its easier to coax them into going where you want them to instead of actually trying to move them where you want them. Ive never worried once about one of my animals killing me but I have worried about the damage being done to my back working with them everyday lol. Im going to hate myself when Im 60