Hey, got a question for y'all. First a little background: My female Sumatran blood is coming up on 2 years old. She's been a pleasant enough little sausage her entire life with me: always eaten well, never bitten, puffs and hisses occasionally but nothing more than that; in short, a patient docile little blob of lazy. That's all changed in the past month. She's been steadfastly trying to destroy her cage, tip the water bowl over, and is systematically pushing her nose against the cage walls like she's trying to find her way out. She's around 5 foot, and she's currently in a 4x2 Boaphile Plastics cage (I know it's a bit small for her, don't have the floor space quite yet to expand to an 8x2). She's been in this cage for several months and never had a problem with it until recently. I was thinking the cage is too small and she's protesting, but even when she's out she's a nutcase. She used to just sit where you put her and mellow until you moved her again. Now, if she's in the bathtub, she'll crawl out and down the hall; if she's on the floor or in my arms, she's all over the place even worse than my carpet python, and puffing and hissing with every inch she crawls. She's never been this active, and I can't keep up.
It got bad enough she got a minor mouth infection and lost a nose scale or two from her rubbing and flooding the cage repeatedly, but I caught it early and the vet gave her antibiotics. She's healed up, but she's going nuts all over again, and I don't want her to keep hurting herself. Any ideas on what's gotten into my snake? Is she coming up to an early puberty and she's getting teenage angst or PMS or what?
Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks in advance!
