Welcome to the bite club! Bites happen and for the most part, the shock of getting tagged is worse then the actual tag.

You mentioned you have had them about a week and handle them often? Personaly, I don't handle my animals often, just when I need to. Handling new animals often results in stress, the bite that was delivered to you may have been basicly a "leave me a lone" bite. Snakes are not really "lap pets"

Then there is the fact you may have had a scent on you the animal did not like, smoke, soap, cat, rat, dog etc...

When I do pick up one of my animals, I usualy let them know I am there first and I almost always use a baffle (usualy a lid from a sterilite tub) then pick the animal up, transfer and do what I need to do.

Just stick with it, yeah, getting bit sucks, and by a big animal it kinda makes you want to wet your self a bit. That reminds me, a couple years ago on the NERD web site, Kevin had posted a pic of a retic bite he had gotten trying to take eggs from a female...think he needed some stitches. I don't think the pic is up on NERDs site any more.

You going to show us some pics of the lovely pair