Hi Ian!



Here's a link to a reply I made mentioning hook training/feeding.



forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1369878,1370451



Here's an excerpt from another reply:

Get a snake hook. Use it to condition your snake and you'll never have any problems with a feeding response strike or a strike from a startled snake. Stroke the snake's head & neck area, and sometimes maybe even its body area, a few times to make sure it's alert and to let it know that you're about to get it out for handling.



I've got a 10ft-plus female & and an 8ft male that I've had since babies and never had a bit of problem with them. I rarely have to reach into their cage to get them out, they most always come out on their own. Reaching into a snake's territory can be dangerous.



Always use tongs to place prey into their cage. I've got a couple of real cheap grabbers like what's sold for elderly or handicapped people to pick things up with.



I feel that there are only two reasons to feed a snake outside of it's normal cage: (1) When two or more snakes are housed to gether they should be seperated before feeding. (2) When a snake is kept in a display that contains potential hazards during feeding.



As time goes on odds are that you won't handle your snake much more often than feeding time. When/if this is the case, feeding outside of cage defeats the purpose 'cause you still have to handle the snake to put it back in it's normal cage.



Yeah, you can use a hook to do so at the moment, but what about when it gets bigger, like this time next year? It would take a strong hook and is dangerous for snake due to lack of supporting it's body weight properly.



When feeding outside of cage, if the snake doesn't get full and/or given plenty of time to get out of feeding mode, guess what, the odds of a strike will be high.



By hook training & handling my snakes before I feed them (all my snakes, pythons & colubrids) my snakes don't go into feeding mode until they see or taste prey, no matter how many times I open their cage (few or plenty). This is what works for me & I believe it can/will work for you. I think I started using a hook on my burms, which are adults now, when they were about the same size as yours, maybe a tad earlier.



Have a good one!

HH
-----
Due to political correctness run amuck,

this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:

Appalachian American

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