I have a male ball python, about 3 years old. I bought him at PetCo in the fall of 2006. In the summer of 2007 I had to leave him with a friend because I was moving somewhere I couldn't have him. During the span of time between the summer of 2007 and a few weeks ago, he also lived for a few months with a photographer friend of mine and was featured in photoshoots with human models. During this time he has never snapped, never bitten, never been anything but a perfectly docile, if a little shy, snake.

About two and a half weeks ago, my girlfriend took him out of his cage to show him to a friend of ours who had stopped by, and she says that he kind of nipped at her. She freaked out a little bit and dropped him. A few days later we went to take him out of his terrarium and he coiled and acted as though he were going to strike. We had already removed his things from his cage to clean it, as it hadn't been cleaned in a couple of weeks, but any attempt to get anywhere near him resulted in the same behavior. Not knowing what else to do, we fed him in cage (the first and only time we've fed him while he was still in his cage since I've owned him.)

His cage still needs to be cleaned pretty badly, and we were going to attempt to feed him this evening but reaching into the cage he got defensive again. He apparently shed about a week ago, and after about twenty minutes he seems to have calmed down a little but I still can't really bring myself to reach into his cage to try to handle him. I've checked around on forums and read that I'm supposed to keep handling him, but I don't own any gloves and I work in food service, and a snake-bite on my hand might actually hurt my chances at getting a job.

I'm very concerned, and I'm not sure what to do. I love my snake very much and I don't want to get rid of him. Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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