Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know these snakes dont usually like to be handled but I can barely get into his enclosure without him trying to bite. Can anyone give me advice on taming him. Even if I can never really handle him I would like him to at least be used to me enough that I can work around him without him trying to attack. It seems that the only way that I could even work with him now would be to hold his head and force him to be held but it just seems to me that doing so would only make things worse. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

How old is it? Most Morelia are nippy when young and some just stay that way. They usually mellow out some but that is relative to each individual snake.

Heck, even my Scrubs "tamed" down after they grew to about 3' though I trust them about as far as I can spit. Its always a good idea to take precautions when extricating them from the cage, thats a big incursion to their world and some react defensively. I have a couple of Chondros that are "dicey" this way but are relatively calm once out of their familiar surroundings.

Bill
Confirmed Herpetological Blood Donor (lol)

Some of these snakes may never tame down.....and I hate to say it, they could also get worse. I have 3 in my collection that require great skill to work with. My best advice is to use removable perches. If the chondro is very alert, use a spray bottle on it before attempting to remove it from the cage. Most WC/imports will tolerate spraying, but I've never seen a CBB animal that wouldn't hide it's head beneath it's coils. In most cases, you can remove the perch with the chondro on it at this time.....but I also have some large females that say otherwise.lol. Good luck.

Brandon Osborne

The only advice I can give that hadnt been mentioned is to work with/around it in the day. You can also use a "sheild" when you have to get poop out or reach in for anything. It dosnt have to be any thing fancy, just hold a piece of newspaper between you and the snake so it cant see you in there.
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- Mike Fourquet

Cloaca Herpetoculture
www.CloacaHerps.com

Thanks for the tips. It is a full adult so i am thinking that I don't have a very good chance of taming this one. He is about 4 feet long so I am worried about taking one to the face. I do use the spray, and the shield techiniques which both seem to work pretty well except if he is already angry. In which case, each spray incites a strike.

I could be off on the length, that is just my closest estimation as I have never seen it stretched out. It could be longer.

Most people overestimate the length of snakes. The only way to tell would be to measure it with a string or take a picture of it next to an object of known size and use a snake measurer program give you the measurement.
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