Generalized Snake Behavior By Sex

[YungRasputin]

One thing that adds confusion with snakes is that the female snakes are generally going to instinctively want to eat more for breeding readiness, or to replenish after reproducing eggs or young, and that appetite can sure mimic aggression at times, especially to anyone with less experience. When you fill them up, they're plenty docile, but in general, some females (even when they've never bred) can seem very feisty for that reason.

Case in point: My 2.2. adult "Florida" (yellow blend) rat snakes. They're all about 15 years old now and never bred, but every year my 2 gals churn out double clutches of unfertilized eggs- as many as 30+ in the first clutch, & a lesser # in the second. You wouldn't BELIEVE how much these girls eat, before they lay eggs & especially after. But I never get bit- because I know how to communicate that it's "me", not food...but if you only judged by their actions, you might think !!! Incidentally, rat snakes are truly so much fun!

well first i would say 95% of my experience with snakes are all pythons because outside of my red tail pair (which both have been supremely chill “right out of the bag” which i assume is typical of the species) that’s all i have so maybe that might be something particular to them i thought and also, all of mine are babies or juveniles so i know my initial perceptions will probably change overtime once they mature and once i work with them more and all of that but! i didn’t know/hadn’t thought of what you said about the breeding stuff - v good point

of my female pythons my ball python is the most tame and always has been so i thought maybe it was “just her” and she was just like that because she’s herself cuz my female burms are super sassy and my female coastal is a demon rn lmao (which granted she’s like the size of a pencil rn but still)