New Volta Girl Help

[Bogertophis]

The towel or pillow technique works well with ball pythons because they do the coil/hide thing as a defense, so they prefer to hide versus run if possible. The defensive abused juvenile burm I got was the same way; she was very grabby and instead of running would prefer to cling to your hand and strike at your face or stitch your arm as a defense. She was never really a runner.

The Sri Lankan python in the video was the opposite; he's a runner. My defensive boas were like this too, and it's harder to deal with that because if you hold onto them too tightly they feel confined by your hands, but you don't want to drop them either. If you notice in the video, the snake is being supported on the back of the hand versus the palm.

The only "goofy" snake I have currently is my Korean rat snake- he's a "runner" & a thrasher too- he doesn't tolerate any tight holding, but we have an understanding now- a routine for tank cleaning- & I haven't had a nip from him in years. Some rat snakes I've had start off like that, like the Taiwan Beauty rat snakes I had (more like racers) but with patience, they settle down okay- so I hate to generalize- I just try to get inside the head of whatever snake I'm holding, because they all have their own personality & perspective anyway. It helps to know what to expect from a species, but we also have to be ready to adjust our techniques. Go with the flow...when they panic, I let them "climb" thru my hands a while too.

I've never dealt with a Sri Lankan python, so I can't say that a towel method would work or not, but many snakes feel threatened when out in the open, as this one was, so it was hard to know if it was that, or being held by a strange human that was most bothersome. I'd say both. Pretty good juggling act though.