My snake suddenly hates me.

[1000Bees]

Hello all, so one of my snakes has just done a complete behavioural 180. I've had him for about a year and a half and he's never once shown any signs of agression or stress, in fact he had the best tolerance for handling out of all my snakes and I've never had any problems with him. Until a few days ago when I was changing his water as soon as I reached my hand in, he just bit me, I waved it off as a one off occurrence thinking maybe I'd startled him, tonight same thing, except this time he hung on and wrapped around my arm, so it was definitely a feeding bite. Prior to this I hadn' t handled him in a few weeks because he was shedding, then I fed him, then I got ptetty sick. I've gone without handling him for this ling before due to various outside factors but he's never acted like this before. Does anyone have any experience with something like this? Do you think I should feed him more (give him two rats instead of one) or has he just become food orientated, or is he just a bastard now? if thats the case that's fine I won't handle him anymore, I don't particularly want to get chomped on again, he really went ham on my poor thumb. Apologies for my rambling, any thoughts? Suggestions?

A moment of celebration for my first, technically second, snake bite. Thanks buddy I hate it .

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[Blighty]

I wouldn't take a feed-response bite personally (or any snake bite personally I suppose). What species is the snake and how old is he actually? He might be due for a meal upgrade or it might have just been a case of wrong place/wrong time for your hand. Even a snake that is otherwise completely docile may well end up chomping on you if it is "hunting."

Funnily enough I had my first food oriented bite this week as well. A South-West Carpet Python that I haven't attempted to handle in months. I had decided I might try and handle him again, just to see if he was anymore confident than he used to be. Turns out he was confident enough to try and eat my hand. At least we got to sit there for a while and have some quality time together (a little over an hour, before I really had to make attempts to unwind him so I could leave for work).

 

[1000Bees]

He's a Coastal Carpet about two years, probably a bit bigger than your guy. I feed him large fuzzies, the next size up is still too big for him so maybe I should give him a smaller rat as well. He's always been a rather enthusiastic feeder and I have to be careful not to get bitten when I'm feeding him, but he always seemed to know when he wasn't being fed. Getting bitten twice in a row just seems pretty out of character. Ah well at least I can impress my Discord Server friends 'you guys are never going to believe what happened!'.

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[Fall guys]

definitely sounds like he is hungry.

my 2yo darwin is on 180g rats monthly

your coastal should be on at least 100g rats - (coastal are larger than darwins) - preferably 150g+ some would say 200g+, but it sounds like he is a bit smaller than he should be for his size

I'd recommend weighing him, and getting food equivalent to 20-30% of his body weight (100g snake gets 20-30g feed etc)
[doublepost=1553381390,1553380695][/doublepost] an idea of what my coastal gets now (600g rabbits)

 

[GBWhite]

Bl69aze is right on the money. It's biting because it's hungry. If it's bigger than the one in Blighty's photo then fuzzies (and I assume you mean rats) are way to small and it should be getting at least 100 to 150 gram rats as a minimum. No need to weigh it just up the food size and get a couple into it before the weather really cools down.

 

[1000Bees]

Ok thanks, I'll weigh him and get him some bigger food. I worry about stuff being too big, probably worry too much.

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[Fall guys]

Ok thanks, I'll weigh him and get him some bigger food. I worry about stuff being too big, probably worry too much.

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Prob best to do what GBw said, just go and get a couple of 100-150g rats before winter hits, and give him 1 every 2-3 weeks (depending on how big they are in comparison to him)

also as APS guidelines state (they don't really)- we need pics

 

[1000Bees]

Prob best to do what GBw said, just go and get a couple of 100-150g rats before winter hits, and give him 1 every 2-3 weeks (depending on how big they are in comparison to him)

also as APS guidelines state (they don't really)- we need pics

Of the snake or the bite?

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[Fall guys]

Of the snake or the bite?

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everything

 

[1000Bees]

My phone takes pictures like a conspiracy documentary surveillance camera.

The culprit.

It seems like such a small wound in comparison to the amount of blood I had to clean up.


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[Fall guys]

they sure do, you will prob get a nice bruise and some aching around the thumb joints for a while if its a decent size snake

 

[dragonlover1]

Of the snake or the bite?

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BOTH, the python is the most important but we like a laugh too