Quote Originally Posted by Gloryhound View Post
We are planning on trying that hammerhead.

Frankykeno thank you. Your old posts do have a lot of good info in them. We are going to back off on her until Wednesday and then we will try handling her before her normally scheduled meal. (My wife normally handles her while I get to play with the rat and get it in her cage to get the sent going. We will watch for if she strikes without grabbing or actually coils around it. We may even try F/T since she was eating that supposedly once in a while before we got her. F/T may not seem as threatening and further help to make her comfortable.

Beardeddragon,
Her eyes are not clouding over yet, but from experience with our little guys some seem to cloud over a week or two before sheding and others seem to cloud over and shed all in what seems like a couple days.
Couple of things....

you are removing her, then placing the live rat in her enclosure then putting her back in? Just my thoughts here but handling any snake when they are hungry is often a recipe for a bite, especially one showing that she's willing to have a go at you. I'd suggest instead, to pre-scent, that you get a small rodent proof container (well ventilated though), place the live rat in it, place it on top of her enclosure on the warm side and just walk away for about an hour.

She'll scent the rat and detect it's movement and most likely be keyed up and ready. Then just quietly and with minimal fuss introduce the rat into her home at the furthest point from where she is. This gives her time to set up her strike and get a good bead on the prey's heat signature.

F/T might be a good idea if she's more used to prey presented that way. ASF might be another idea as some BP's can't resist a nice ASF. You could also try a rat fuzzy (that's a rat about 9 to 14 days of age). Their eyes are still closed, they have no erupted teeth yet so are safe to leave in her enclosure overnight with her. It's a very small prey item likely for her size but it may trigger her to want to eat again.

If movement near her enclosure triggers a strike you might want to either move her to a dark, quiet room (large walk-in closet even) or place a light dark cloth over the front of her enclosure. I have old dark blue or green pillowcases I use for this purpose. You might also do a search here for the "newspaper trick". It's a sure winner and we used it with Brannagh for a time.

I would start handling her under very controlled conditions for very short, quiet periods of time. Not when she's hungry, not when she's just eaten, not when she's in shed cycle though. Just work on being able to remove her from her home, hold her for a moment (she may struggle so control that head), then return her to her home. Repeat regularily using the exact same hand movements and simple routine. If she's like Brannagh at some point it will get through her snakey brain that nothing nasty is happening to her and all the fuss in the world isn't going to change the simple handling you are doing.

Slowly overtime you can extend the handling experience but at first, if you can get 1 minute of calm behaviour, it's enough. We made it a rule to never return Brannagh to her enclosure until she stopped fighting us (and she fought hard). As soon as she calmed, even for a second, then she could go back "home". We made sure handling occurred in a controlled area and none of our kids were present, also we wore gloves to protect us.