Yes, he was in a glass aquarium for quarantine. On the floor of our bird room, which was the only room in the house with NO reptiles. This was important to us because of the sorry state he was in and the fact that he was, quite literally, crawling with mites.

I am not sure about feeding him outside his viv. That is counter to everything I have ever read about feeding them. I truly didn't just rush into this half assed. I did a lot of reading and felt like this was a good burm for me because it was coming from someone I, at the time, trusted and considered to be a fairly good friend. I was told he was super nice, but could no longer be kept because of the change in Florida's laws. I had no reason to believe otherwise up until I actually saw this fellows place and his "collection" at which time it became apparent that this would be a rescue from a very bad situation.

I did feed him last night, which was 7 days from his last feeding. I will continue to feed him every 7 days and see how he does. If that helps, great.

I am more than willing to try various things to help this guy, but I am inclined to agree with Wes in that the world does not need more aggressive snakes, and it's certainly not easy to find a home, even for free, for a large and aggressive normal male burm. He's not really worth anything as a breeder, so his sole value will be as a pet. Right now he's a piss poor pet, but he's only about 4' long. He's not going to hurt anyone seriously at that size. I have time to try some things and see if he can be tamed, but if he can't be, I am not going to shirk the responsibility of humanely euthanizing a potentially deadly animal because it makes me uncomfortable and is a difficult decision. I made an informed decision to take him in, allowing him to become my responsibility, and I'll do what I need to do to ensure that he is kept in a responsible manner. If that means allowing a vet to end his life should he stay very aggressive, then that's what I'll do.

In the mean time, though, I am getting a lot of good suggestions to try. I don't want to overwhelm him with insanity, but I added an additional hide yesterday and I am going to look around at the herp show this weekend and see what they have that could help him to feel more secure.

I do have one question, though. In my readings on burm aggression (most of which deals with juvenile and baby burms, not older adults) there was mention on one page that feathers from chickens carry an enzyme that has been shown to increase aggression. I did a little additional research and found some zoo and animal husbandry sites that had the same conclusion, but only in birds and mammals... no others related to snakes. Anyone else heard this?? He was being fed exclusively chicks for months and months....