Newly Aggressive Spider Ball..

[Physician&Snakes]

I wouldn't be so quick to say you're conditioning the snake to be aggressive out of the tank if you feed her in a separate enclosure. Because conversely, if you fed her in the tank, she would become aggressive when you'd go to pick her up, because a hand in the tank would mean food.

Not if you use tongs.

If the ONLY thing you were doing when taking her out of the tank is feeding, then yes, you'd be slowly conditioning her to be aggressive. Same case with feeding in the tank. But because you're doing different things when taking her out, like handling her and letting her roam around, she isn't being conditioned.

Pavlovian conditioning involves setting certain stimuli to produce certain responses. For example, when I go to handle or perform maintenance on my retics, I show them my snake hook and rub it gently against them, then I proceed to do my business. If I am feeding, the hook is nowhere to be seen and the only thing they see is me, the tongs, and the rat. The only difference with my other specimens is they just see my hand when it's not feeding time. It is more than possible to condition multiple behaviors.

I'd be willing to agree that it's simply a grumpy, stressed out snake.
You're more than welcome to try feeding her in the tank, as I don't think either method (in-tank or separate enclosure) has any real impact on aggressive behaviour, but I would definitely handle her a little less.

I have a scrub who has always been like that; however, this specimen has apparently went from relatively placid to slightly aggressive, and the accepted axiom is that every response has a stimulus, therefore something has caused a change and should be identifiable.

See bolded.

[Capt.Britain]

See bolded.

Good points!
I hadn't considered using a snake hook to help signal that difference for in-tank. That would make quite a difference.
But I don't use snake hooks, and we don't even have one on hand for our education snakes at the zoo since they're all so handle-able, so I wouldn't have ever thought of that. Plus feeding time is usually weekly cleaning time as well, so having snakes out of the tank lets me kill two mice with one stone.

What I was trying to get across, though, is the same thing you're saying. There are different parameters. Taking a snake out and letting it chill on the couch with you is different than taking it out and putting it in a separate feeding tank, so that act of taking the snake out alone wouldn't make it aggressive due to out-of tank feeding, and just as you pointed out, entering the enclosure wouldn't automatically cause aggression for a snake fed in-take.

[Physician&Snakes]

What I was trying to get across, though, is the same thing you're saying. There are different parameters. Taking a snake out and letting it chill on the couch with you is different than taking it out and putting it in a separate feeding tank, so that act of taking the snake out alone wouldn't make it aggressive due to out-of tank feeding, and just as you pointed out, entering the enclosure wouldn't automatically cause aggression for a snake fed in-take.

Yes the problem is, if I feed in a separate enclosure and I remove the animal from the cage, then the animal is in a state of "what is happening". The animal does not know it's handling time until the owner gets to the couch or walks around for awhile...in this little time window, you have major room for error; however, if I feed in the cage, then out of the cage automatically means no food.

I hear you on large collections, I used your "feed and clean" method at the store too simply due to the sheer volume of animals. One reason why I am keeping my collection under 30 specimens...I like the idea of being to instill behavioral cues in my animals