'hanging on for dear life' seems to be common to c.carinata, my adult female and juveniles I handled in the past both displayed this behavior. For such a small snake they have a startling grip!
I suppose some will remain snappy their whole lives but all I have worked with settled down once they became used to my scent. I would reccomend using a small snake hook to pull the boa out of the tank, as my female is a very aggressive feeder and will strike at moving objects passing 20 feet away when she is hungry. As for the bite, they do have a lot of sharp teeth and a big head, but fortunately stay small, my female is 10 years old and just over 3', I believe the maximum size is around 4'. I have never been bitten by my female, but I imagine it would be no worse than a defensive strike by a large colubrid (adult corn/rat/gopher, etc.) As well as the gripping, she has always remained frightened of fast/excessive movement and anything getting near her head. If I am careless and touch any part of her head or neck, she will immediately give me the death grip, jerk her head back near or under her coils, and occasionally retaliates by peeing all over me. My advise would be constant, daily handiling (use a glove on one hand and let the boa strike at that for a while, it may soon realise how futile its actions are and start to regard you as just another harmless, moving tree). As far as food size, ground boas are some of the most primitive snakes, their jaws and skull are not as flexible as most pythons and boas. I feed my female small rat pups; she is certainly capable of killing and consuming a larger rodent but I feel that the smaller rats are easier for her to handle. When she consumed larger rats, she would get about to the shoulder, and then spit it out, reposition the food and try again, sometimes it took her more than 10 trys to get it right. So now I just give her 3 small rat pups once a week instead of 1 larger rodent. Good luck!
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Heather J. Martin
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1 Solomon island ground boa, female
1 Green iguana, male
1 Ball python, gender unknown
1 Green anaconda, juvenile, gender unknown
1 Burmese python, 9', female

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