New ball pythons, first time owner, one angry snake

[Capt.Britain]

A lot of great tips, advice and experience shared. I'll hang in there with the grumpy one. He only hissed at people. No striking. Biting the other snake that got close was what alarmed and surprised me.

The little guy was probably just extremely stressed and freaked out. Pillow-case travel is not something snakes are initially used to. Depending on how long your drive back home was, and if he was only in a pillow case with nothing tight to press against, he would be pretty stressed out and ready to strike/hiss at anything, which he did.
Next time you buy a snake/transport one, try putting him in a pillow case and putting that in a cardboard box close to the size of the snake's hide. That'll help keep the stress down and prevent a tagging when you take them back out.


As for out-of-tank v. in-tank feeding, that's up to you. I feed mine out-of-tank so that way I can clean the enclosure when they're feeding.