# Accidental Constriction????



## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

So my Stimmie just turned one yesterday, feb 2 if anyone forgot the date. I took him out and he seemed kinda finicky and just not very happy. He started wrapping around my fingers like he usually does but he started squeezing around my pinky (Ill insert pics). I got worried because I was home alone with my sister and there was no way she would help me. I ended up calling two of my friends from interstate (I recently moved) and one of them, bless her heart, asked her mum what to do. I ended up getting his lower body through the "knot" he created and he let go. I dont know if he freaked out and just started squeezing or if something else happened.

Hit me with your theories












IMG_3398



__ LittleButterfly
__ Feb 3, 2019



Accidental constriction? Didn't bite me so maybe go freaked out and started squeezing


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Feb 3, 2019)

Well that's purple!


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

Flaviemys purvisi said:


> Well that's purple!


Yup, its when I really started panicking, he's quite small so he shouldn't be able to do much damage


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## LilithLeChat (Feb 3, 2019)

My Diamond went through a phase when she’d constrict for no reason, almost as if she was testing her strength. Now she only squeezes when she doesn’t want to be put back in her enclosure, but nowhere near as tight or for so long. Longest was around 45 minutes


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Feb 3, 2019)

LilithLeChat said:


> My Diamond went through a phase when she’d constrict for no reason, almost as if she was testing her strength. Now she only squeezes when she doesn’t want to be put back in her enclosure, but nowhere near as tight or for so long. Longest was around 45 minutes


Hahaha wow that is seriously ADORABLE!


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## Sdaji (Feb 3, 2019)

Probably just hungry and hoping it'll be able to kill and eat your hand/fingers.


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> Probably just hungry and hoping it'll be able to kill and eat your hand/fingers.


He was fed two days prior


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## Sdaji (Feb 3, 2019)

LittleButterfly said:


> He was fed two days prior



He's relatively small for his age so no doubt he'd be happy to be fed two days (or two minutes) after each feed he gets.


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> He's relatively small for his age so no doubt he'd be happy to be fed two days (or two minutes) after each feed he gets.


He doesn't normally act this way. I do agree with the size-age comment though, he is small because he had been fed pinkies for a long time by the breeder. There is a major storm happening as I type this so maybe the weather was changing


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## Sdaji (Feb 3, 2019)

LittleButterfly said:


> He doesn't normally act this way. I do agree with the size-age comment though, he is small because he had been fed pinkies for a long time by the breeder. There is a major storm happening as I type this so maybe the weather was changing



He's constricting because he's trying to kill. That's the reason pythons constrict. If he's not going all crazy and frantically trying to bite and flee etc, he's not feeling scared/threatened, he just wants to kill and eat you, because he's hungry.


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> He's constricting because he's trying to kill. That's the reason pythons constrict. If he's not going all crazy and frantically trying to bite and flee etc, he's not feeling scared/threatened, he just wants to kill and eat you, because he's hungry.


Isn't that lovely


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## Sdaji (Feb 3, 2019)

LittleButterfly said:


> Isn't that lovely



Heh heh  Yeah, it's sort of cute  I'd feed him more though


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> Heh heh  Yeah, it's sort of cute  I'd feed him more though


Ok


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## Yellowtail (Feb 3, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> Heh heh  Yeah, it's sort of cute  I'd feed him more though


Not so cute when they get bigger, definitely feed more and probably larger.


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

Yellowtail said:


> Not so cute when they get bigger, definitely feed more and probably larger.


Yeah
[doublepost=1549177877,1549177800][/doublepost]My theory is now, thinking about it, I recently moved and I had to feed him a day late due to not having a fridge and pet stores being closed. Maybe he is just still hungry from his prolonged (not really) wait


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## Yellowtail (Feb 3, 2019)

More likely the size of the rodents you are feeding him are not satisfying.


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

Yellowtail said:


> More likely the size of the rodents you are feeding him are not satisfying.


Thing is he is quite small for his age and he is on fuzzies. I think the breeder fed him pinkies for too long. I doubt he could manage much more than a fuzzy


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## Yellowtail (Feb 3, 2019)

You will be surprised, I don't feed any carpet hatchlings pinkies, they start on fuzzies and mine are big fuzzies (Quackenbush mice)


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 3, 2019)

Yellowtail said:


> You will be surprised, I don't feed any carpet hatchlings pinkies, they start on fuzzies and mine are big fuzzies (Quackenbush mice)


I really do want to get him on the bigger mice but I get worried and I doubt my parents would like that he needs new sizes of mice when they literally bought mice like four days ago


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## dragonlover1 (Feb 3, 2019)

So feed him 2 mice at a time till they are gone and then upsize. Easy!


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## Tobe404 (Feb 3, 2019)

I don't get my bigger Murray Darling out as often as I used to. Not sure but maybe that's why she's been squeezy lately?

But since it's been hotter i have been feeding her every week or so a 500-ish gram Rat. 

Fun and games at times when she's around 2m long and 2.5 - 3kg lol. Keep in mind those are just estimates.


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## Sdaji (Feb 4, 2019)

To give you some idea, I usually have my Antaresia on adult mice by about 6 months and they're often average adult size by about 1 year. Most people would consider my methods to be a bit extreme, but it shows what they're comfortably capable of.


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## Mick666 (Feb 4, 2019)

Last year i was trying to get my carpet hatchies feeding on pinky mice, they were really difficult to get feeding. I was told by a very experienced breeder that I should skip the pinky's and fuzzies and go straight to hoppers. This year they are smashing them. I'm so grateful for that advice, it's made my life so much easier. I'm not sure what size the stimmy's would eat as hatchies, I assume they are a lot smaller than baby carpets. But being a year old, I'm sure he would take something a lot bigger than a fuzzy.


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## Sdaji (Feb 4, 2019)

Mick666 said:


> Last year i was trying to get my carpet hatchies feeding on pinky mice, they were really difficult to get feeding. I was told by a very experienced breeder that I should skip the pinky's and fuzzies and go straight to hoppers. This year they are smashing them. I'm so grateful for that advice, it's made my life so much easier. I'm not sure what size the stimmy's would eat as hatchies, I assume they are a lot smaller than baby carpets. But being a year old, I'm sure he would take something a lot bigger than a fuzzy.



Yeah, pink mice are far too small for hatchling Carpets. Many inexperienced people give their snakes feeds which are too small. You want at least 10% of the snake's weight (I usually go for around 25%) for growing pythons. Rather than ever giving a python a feed less than 10% I'd just feed less often other than in unusual situations.


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 4, 2019)

So I need to feed him two mice per feed and then upsize? Should I also move him to a lower traffic area (currently in laundry, much to my dismay) Looking to move him into study and also unsure when to put him in his larger enclosure


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## Sdaji (Feb 4, 2019)

LittleButterfly said:


> So I need to feed him two mice per feed and then upsize? Should I also move him to a lower traffic area (currently in laundry, much to my dismay) Looking to move him into study and also unsure when to put him in his larger enclosure



Approximate 15-20% of the snake's body weight is a good size for a meal. Without seeing the mice and snakes next to each other it's difficult to say.

If the snake is happy where he is, the location is fine. If you want to move him for whatever reason, it'll probably be fine. I tend to take the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' strategy, and as long as the snake is happy and healthy I'm never in a hurry to upgrade their cage, but again, if for whatever reason you want to and he is generally a happy, healthy easygoing snake, then a move will probably be completely fine. For me, I move them when it either looks like it's clearly time or if I get the feeling the snake would be better off in something larger (that's difficult for newbies but after doing it for decades I have a pretty good feel for it).


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## LittleButterfly (Feb 4, 2019)

Sdaji said:


> Approximate 15-20% of the snake's body weight is a good size for a meal. Without seeing the mice and snakes next to each other it's difficult to say.
> 
> If the snake is happy where he is, the location is fine. If you want to move him for whatever reason, it'll probably be fine. I tend to take the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' strategy, and as long as the snake is happy and healthy I'm never in a hurry to upgrade their cage, but again, if for whatever reason you want to and he is generally a happy, healthy easygoing snake, then a move will probably be completely fine. For me, I move them when it either looks like it's clearly time or if I get the feeling the snake would be better off in something larger (that's difficult for newbies but after doing it for decades I have a pretty good feel for it).



Took him out today and he is back to normal. We moved him to a quieter area because the vibrations from the washing machine was probably driving him crazy. I would like him to be a bit bigger until I move him into his bigger enclosure.


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## dragonlover1 (Feb 4, 2019)

It wouldn't just be the vibrations that were a problem,but the smell of the chemicals in there. I only have my incubator in the laundry and would like to move that out too but it's the coolest room in the house so it's more stable. I don't think the traffic affects them too much, we have 1 near the front door, 1 on the kitchen table and others scattered around the house.


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## Flaviemys purvisi (Feb 4, 2019)

dragonlover1 said:


> It wouldn't just be the vibrations that were a problem,but the smell of the chemicals in there. I only have my incubator in the laundry and would like to move that out too but it's the coolest room in the house so it's more stable. I don't think the traffic affects them too much, we have 1 near the front door, 1 on the kitchen table and others scattered around the house.


+1


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## chloe.j.f (Feb 6, 2019)

He was constricting to hold on. If it was a good response he would’ve bitten. If you find him doing it again put him in a better position and support his body. 

How old is he?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Sdaji (Feb 7, 2019)

chloe.j.f said:


> He was constricting to hold on. If it was a good response he would’ve bitten. If you find him doing it again put him in a better position and support his body.



Hungry pythons will constrict without biting in the right circumstances. If they are a bit confused and are already in contact with the animal they'll often start constricting (you can play with this with your own pythons, it's sort of fun). If you want to get a python to constrict something without biting the easiest way is to get one already biting something else and then putting another thing (say, a mouse) on its body in another spot and it'll often constrict that one too, but if its head is being distracted by watching something or whatever and you put the mouse on its body you can get it to constrict without biting. Once in a while they'll just do it of their own accord. Usually we don't see them constrict without biting because we either wave a dead rat in their face and they grab it or we leave it in with them and they wander over and eat it, but handling a young, confused python with your hand is actually a fairly good way to trick a hungry python into constricting without biting because it can feel that it's in contact with something made of food (it's literally part of an edible animal) and the snake is really confused about where the head of this animal is or which part to bite because it's not the right shape or size according to what it would naturally encounter, so it's quite common for them to constrict with intention to kill (not that they have any chance of actually killing your hand) without biting in this situation. I've only been working with snakes for around 30 years and have only dealt with several thousand, maybe you know more than I do, so correct me if I'm wrong.


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