A couple of weeks back I picked up a BlackThroat that was in horrible condition. He had been taken in as a rescue due to the owners health and had obviously not been fed or cared for very well at all. I have been working on getting him healthy and so far it seems to be working. His ribs and hip bones are no longer visible and he walks tall on his legs instead of dragging himself around, but, he is MEAN AS THE DEVIL. Now I relaize that this poor guy has had a rough time of it for at least a little while, but, how much patience am I going to need to get him to a handleable state? He hisses, puffs up his throat, tail whips like crazy and tries to bite, luckily I have avoided the bite so far but he is getting faster everyday.

His cage is not as big as I would like but I am working on that. Right now his setup is as follows:

Cage is 7'x3'x2'......basking spot(rocks to bask on) is 115-125 deg. cool side is 85-90 deg. substrate is aspen bedding until I can get him a deeper cage when he will get dirt. He is eating raw turkey and rodents(small rats or adult mice, whichever i have) and pooping like a KING. Cage is cleaned daily and he is fed out of his cage, reason for that is he got to the point where he would charge the door as soon as I unlocked in and try to worm his way out to get to the food, so now he is placed in a large wire dog carrier while he eats and then returned to his cage.

This guy is about 4.5 - 5ft. long and I would have to guess pretty much an Adult although I cannot be sure of his age. I guess my main concern is that he may never turn that corner and trust that I am not going to hurt him, never calm down to the point that I can confidently handle him, is this a safe assumption?? The only handling that he gets right now is in transit from his feed cage and back and the momentary petting i sneak in on him as often as possible. Just looking for some encouragement i guess....let me know what you think, sorry this is so long.

[ Show Entire Thread ]