Chipcount,
...Your Boa is not aggresive. It is defensive. Every time it hisses and strikes and you retreat you are reinforcing the hissing and striking behaviour. Regular handling will tame the snake. The bite of a baby Boa is about as bad as the scratch from a little kitten. Instead of retreating from the snake when it hisses and strikes pick it up and handle it. If it strikes or bites do not flinch and do not back away. With regular handling it will quickly learn that hissing and biting are not effective defensive behaviours. You can do this easily now. If you do not get the snake tamed now it will continue hissing and striking and it will be difficult to tame later when it is large. After it has become tame handle it at least a couiple times a week and it should stay tame.
Good luck,
Jeff

>>I have a 3 month old c.b. boa that I have had for about 2 months. It has eaten 6 times, drinks, poops, and its setup is in a sweater box with paper towels, water dish, heat tape, etc. so it seems to be healthy in that sense. My problem is that it is SUPER AGGRESIVE!!!
>>Everytime I open the lid it starts hissing and sometimes attempts to strike. I have heard to try and pick it up with a snake stick and then set it in your palm but it wont even let the snake stick come near it. (I am not trying to overly stress it out and try this only like once a week) They say to hold it regularly so that it will calm down but it wont even let me do that. The weird thing about this is that when I first got it, I could hold it with no problem. Then I guess when it got used to its setup it decided to get mean lol.
>>Any suggestions? I want to be able to hold it because my intentions of it was to have it as a pet. I mean I definitely dont want a 8 foot snake trying to take my head off later on. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

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