Aggressive Blue Eyed Leucisitic Ball Python

[steepe99]

I just received my beautiful BEL on March 28th, I haven't handled her as I was letting her get use to her environment and she took her first feed Monday. She is about 7 months old and weighs around 200 grams, she is currently eating large mice and I am going to upgrade her to rat pups the next time she eats. She lives in a 36x18x12 tank, she has 2 hides one on the hot and one of the cold side. I also placed fake leaves around the cage and she sometimes hides in them, and she has aspen bedding for substrate. I use ceramic heat emitters for heat, and the hot side temperature registers around 90-95 and the cold side around 80-85 degrees, and the humidity is around 50-60%. I went into her cage to hold her for the first time, and she immediately curled up in a ball, I started to pet her to let her know I was there, then she turned around and snapped at me drawing blood. I then tried to handle her again, not backing down and she snapped again. I didn't want to stress her out anymore so I put the lid on the cage and left her to be since I wasn't making any progress. I decided to look in the cage and she isn't using her hides and is curled up in the corner of her cage in a striking position. I don't want to stress her out, I just want to handle her. Should I use a snake hook to get her out of the cage? What should I do to calm her down to be able to handle her?
Thank you for your time,
Billy

[Tannerrrtx]

She just sounds fiesty I wouldn't be too worried.

Add- you may try going from behind her and slowly pick her up, my 8 month old I have to do this with. He's just a d*ck hahah

[steepe99]

I tried to go from behind her, but she just starts to follow my every movement with her eyes daring me to touch her or handle her. She started to push herself to the corner of the cage when I tried to handle her from behind. Is she being cage aggressive? Is there anyway to get her out without taking bites? I'm not worried about getting bitten, I'm worried that her teeth might break or become damage from biting me so much.

[DG76]

I'd leave it to settle a bit longer, if you bought this from a breeder it was most likely kept in a shoe box sized tub for the past 6 months, a 3ft viv is a whole lot of space if your not used to it. try adding another hide or 2 in the middle and plenty of fake plants & branches.

also when you say a tank do you mean like a glass fish tank ? do you have it covered on 3 sides ?

i wouldn't worry too much it'll just take it a while to get used to it's new home and feel safe.

[Greekinese]

Can try any of these:
1. snake hook
2. small cloth to put in between your hand and his head so you can grab the body
3. tap the head to make it ball up and grab it (though it sounds like it might tag you if you try lol)

Once up it should be a little better, but yeah...my snake is right about the same as yours, just a month older and I've had him for a couple more weeks. About the same size and I made the transition to rat pups (from adult mice) on my 3rd feeding. Mine is more afraid than aggressive though, but reading the forums and researching you can try one of those 3 methods to pick them up.

Let us know how it went!

[steepe99]

Alright, I will try that, and its a exo terra cage, it has front doors that open for handling, and a top part that comes off. Its not covered on 3 sides, should I try covering the cage on 3 sides? Should I attempt to handle her? Or wait another week to handle her?

[steepe99]

Alright, I will also try those ideas! Thank you!

[DG76]

Alright, I will try that, and its a exo terra cage, it has front doors that open for handling, and a top part that comes off. Its not covered on 3 sides, should I try covering the cage on 3 sides? Should I attempt to handle her? Or wait another week to handle her?

Personally I'd try covering 3 sides to try and make her feel more secure. you can get the plastic backgrounds like you get for fish tanks in all sorts of designs but any paper and some tape would work.
To me she just sounds afraid and a bit defensive. sort the reason for being afraid and the defensiveness shouldn't be a problem.

I'd try not to handle her for another week, others will have different opinions on how to go about it but I think another week will help her settle.

[Capray]

What they said. She is probably just a bit scared, especially if she's a baby. She'll get tamer as she grows.

Just hold her gently for like 5 minues at a ime so she doesnt get too stressed out, but is getting used to handling.
Good luck with her, I bet she's stunning.


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[Pythonfriend]

one method that works well with small agressive snakes is to make a flat hand, come from above, and lower the flat hand slowly over the head of the snake. because they keep their head horizontal and dont tilt it sideways, its clode to impossible to bite that way. When your hand is gently covering the head, you take her halfway down the body, and one you are holding her and she is in crawling mode chances of a bite drop significantly. Then you can hold her until she calms down.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgCP6S5q554 unfortunately its in german, and he shows it with a baby retic because they are more agressive, but you can see it very well. after 0:45 in the video he shows how to do it correctly, after 2:45 he shows how not to do it and the mistake nervous people that are a bit scared of the snake tend to make, and gets tagged twice. Then he shows how to do it correctly a second time. Basically you use a flat hand at the right angle as a shield, and if she tries to strike she just bumps her nose against your flat hand and noone gets hurt.


EDIT: in response to the other post, im one of the guys that believes that you cannot get a ball python to really be more tame without handling it. Tame snakes are, in my mind, snakes that were handled correctly and often enough when they were young. a week of rest, making the enclosure so that the snake feels more secure, that can all help and assists in the process, but only handling the snake correctly and often enough seals the deal. Thats the core of it and everything else combined cannot be a substitute for it.