Is handeling BP's as stressful for them as people think?

[CptJack]

I'm adding my voice to the 'it's individual' crowd. They're primitive animals, but that doesn't mean they're lacking individuality, greater and lesser degrees of learning (and I'm not saying teaching them sit, but things like familiar environments being non-threatening) and comfort.

My pastel and normal are different. They're both fairly typical, docile, snakes, but the pastel stresses more easily than the normal. The normal falls asleep on me on a fairly regular basis, will eat anywhere, including while being held, has never shown defensive behavior (even balling up). When removed from his enclosure he immediately lifts himself up toward my face and smells it thoroughly, and when he's aware of someone else in the room comes OUT of his hides and presses his little nose to the front of the glass. He voluntarily comes 'to hand' (as in into' or uses the arm reaching in as a ladder to get out. He doesn't try to hide while he's out, doesn't seek hides, doesn't try to get into my clothes or hair, and instead chills out in the open and often goes to sleep there. He's not as fast moving, but his behavior is fairly close to that of my corn snake, really.

The pastel balls up fairly easily when things like his hide being removed happen, goes INTO his hide if people are in the room rather than out, and spends most of his time out or being handled trying to get under pillows/blankets/clothes/anything he can to hide. When he first comes out he's tense, and makes rudimentary efforts to ball (he's a big boy) and hide his head. He's tense. He'll still eat anywhere because he's a chow hound, but he is obviously less comfortable and interactive than the normal guy and would much prefer to be left alone. So, I drag him out once in a while for short handling sessions and to keep him semi-used to it (and he is getting more comfortable) but mostly leave him alone.

They are very, very different snakes.