What is your snake thinking?

[Gio]

I've seen this video before and it reminds me a lot of what happened to me with my retic to an extent.

My male was smaller/leaner but in the 9 foot range. I was not bitten because of a feeding response however, instead, it was male combat behavior.

There were 3 of us here on the board that all got retics around the same time. I was the holdout as 1 person placed their animal, another male, and a buddy of mine had to place his female and his overly aggressive male next.

I purchased more serious equipment and had conversations with a great breeder/keeper, Garrett Hartle who gave me advice on how to work with my animal.


Long story short, I was wrapped, bitten and in a 10 minute battle. Both arms ended up wrapped for a time.

Like the woman in the video, I remained calm and after about 10 minutes he uncoiled. My wife never heard me shout for her to come down to help me out. A combative bite includes more twisting to damage the opponent. I was lucky to come out without too much damage, though I missed a couple days of work.

I placed the snake with a well known retic breeder a week or 2 later. To this day, he is still aggressive and difficult from what I'm told. That behavior is not at all relaxing and doesn't jive with the reasons I keep reptiles. Simply not for me, and I'm a solo show here. The family is not into it.

Depending on the species and sex of the animal, you may have to deal with behaviors other than feeding responses.

An apex predator that engages in pre-mating combat can add another dimension to your experience.