Well a huge thank you to Adam as once again his newspaper balls in the enclosure trick has done it again!
Our highly aggressive adult female has been with us just 6 days now and even though she's been provided appropriate hides she's refused to enter them to our knowledge (have never seen her in her hides nor seen any disturbance of her aspen substrate indicating she's entered). She just "paces" her enclosure until she finally gives up and lays wherever she drops basically.
A few days ago we finally got smart LOL and we filled her tub with lots and lots of newspaper balls! Well darn it all if that snake isn't tucked up in her hide good as gold! We did have to remove her last night (Mike used gloves...he's no dumb puppy LOL) so I could refresh her water and check under the newspaper balls for feces/urates. She did come out of the tub much better and did not attempt a strike this time. She also re-entered her tub well, just calmly slithering under her newspaper balls and not attempting to turn and get in one last attempt to bite as she usually does.
I'd say it's a resounding success and a HUGE thanks to Adam once again.
If you have a stressed, aggressive or very shy snake this is a great thing to try...it can't hurt the snake....costs nothing and at least for us with this one snake it seems to be quickly bringing down her stress levels which in turn make her much safer to handle and manage (tho I for one don't trust The Brat quite yet LOL).
~~Jo~~