Stimson Python biting itself.

[DeSensi]

Hello everyone

My Stimson Python shed over night and I took him out of his enclosure so I could do the usual clean.

Put him in his usual click clack while I clean his enclosure and noticed some abnormal behavior, he was making a perfect rectangle around the outside edge of the click clack chasing his own tail, occasionally striking and then slowly chewing on his own rear section quickly realizing it was himself and flicking his head away quickly. he would cruise around the container with his head resting on the end of his own body making a perfect rectangle moving pretty fast and as before occasionally would stop to have a go at himself. I didn't get any footage of this as I wanted to clean his cage and get him back in asap in case it was something about the container.

So I finally put him back in his enclose and he was doing the same thing I got some footage of the biting so you could see what he is doing, sometimes he would strike really hard others he was gentle (which he usually is when taking a food item) not sure why he would be doing this as this is the first of it I have seen.

[video=youtube;oPpcpLhgxmg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPpcpLhgxmg&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Starter]

Hi. What does "click clack" mean? I assume your little boy is really hungry, he would even eat his own body if it wouldn't hurt so much. Please give him some food straight away! Almost all snakes will no eat anything when they are preparing for shedding (you can see this on their glassy eyes) and they are VERY hungry once it is done!

 

[DeSensi]

He ate less than a week ago (a very big food item), I assumed he was hungry just never seen him do that before I will feed him as soon as I get home and see how he goes.

Click clack is just the large storage container that he usually goes in with his hide etc while I clean his enclosure.

Thanks

 

[GBWhite]

Hi DeSensi,

Having watched the video of your snake it appears to me that it has detected the scent of something on its body that it relates to as a possible food item or may be even another snake. I was wondering if you handled anything like a rat, mouse or guinea pig, snake, lizard or even patted a dog or cat or were around bird cages before you cleaned the cage. I've seen the same reaction with pythons doing this when someone has forgot to wash their hands or change their clothes after handling rodents, cleaning snake/lizard enclosures or patting pets.

I'm not saying that this is definitely the reason, I'm mentioning it for something to consider.

Cheers,

George.

 

[DeSensi]

Thanks for that George I do have a couple of dogs who I pat often maybe some scent slipped through, could be a possibility as it was targeting a very specific part of its body every time just above the tail. I have given him something to eat so I won't disturb him now, any ideas of how I could help remove the scent?

Thanks

 

[junglepython2]

It could well be a food response, though they will also bite themselves if in pain or if there is a mite infestation so I would be keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary and ruling out mites.