Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well it's been a quite a few years since I was in the hobby. I just aquired a 14.5 ft female burm. she seemed dog tame when I first got her. Of course she had just ate and was cool. Well my son was really ready to get her out to give her a little excercise so we went to the basement and opened the cage and when I gave her a stroke. She took her coil and pushed me off. then the second time she did it again ( much more intense) I then felt her cage. It seems her over all cage temp was really warm. It then took me back to a 9ft male I used to have that would be baby tame if cool but when he was heated he had no tolerence for even coming close to his cage. So my question is who else has a seemingly moody snake? So I'm turning off the heat at least until morning so I can clean her cage atleat!

Since you posted this I'm making some suggestions. I don't know how you are heating your cage but it sounds like you need a thermostat to control the heat. Do you know what temperature your snake is? Temperature guns are great to have too. Reaching into the cage of a 14 foot burm with your hands is a bad idea. I'd suggest you get a python hook from tongs.com. Go in with the hook first to push the front of the snake away from you or you may end up with a feeding response attack that could be a very bad situation. Turning off the heat is a horrible idea as burms are very susceptible to respiratory infections. You are setting yourself up to have a sick snake. Handling large burms just after a meal is also a bad idea for a few reasons, the biggest one being they are still in attack mode. By reading your posts I think you have taken on more than you were ready for so I hope you take the advice available on this forum.

Hello reticguy,
LOL! From rereading my post I can understand why you would think I was a novice. LOL Yes I do have many different hooks claws and tongs from golf club,mechanical tongs to the colapsable etc... When I said I would "stroke her body" I did this with the hook. I agree that would be pretty silly to just reach in! all it would take is one time. That would be like a whiley coyote cartoon!

I should have been clearer I do not regulate her heat by touch LoL. I have a cool (no heat) area of the cage. The area of the cage choosen by the snake felt particularly warm to the touch. I do have a sophisticated heating and humidity (6am heater and airstone on the water bowl controlled by a humidistat)control system. complete with ventilation fans etc... I use a medusa digital programamable control system(normally usually used for reef tank dosing and lights)I just got the snake and built the ultimate (in my mind) walk in snake cage.I had alot of the parts left over from when I used to be into herps and fish tanks really heavy.I will post pics soon my local herp friends are calling it herptopia LOL!

However that's beside the point. I just wanted to know if someone noticed that some snakes(not all)have a distinctive personality change(jeckel/hyde)when heated. Some more then others. I've had many snakes over the years and I have notice that with burms and retics some of them behave this way.It did not seem that way for me with like Redtail boas etc..and a little off topic I notice this also with blackthroat monitors Males for the most part. But of course this is my observation. I could be totally wrong. Of course that's my reason for asking!

I should have made myself clearer when I said I was going "cutting off" her heat. I meant that I was going to maintain the night time temp-drop so she does not get ramped up again.

Thanks for the sound advice It's cool to know that this board is here to help out.The miscommunication is entirely my fault Sorry!

is what the snake was doing if it was in the warmer part of the cage IMHO. Since you have an area that is cooler, the lil guy wanted the heat and perhaps didn't want to be messed with at the time. I have a tic that does this regularly until she is out of the cage. My burms don't do this much. It could also be to the fact that once the snake is cooler, it has less desire to move much. Perhaps this is the case?
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2.1 RTB (Zander, Ridick, Liliana)
1.1 Burms (Vladamir, Natalia)
0.1 Lavender Albino Retic (Katerina)
1.1 100% Het Tigers (Nicholi & Charlamaine)
2.3 Silver fox rabbits
many, many, many, many rats
"So, just how big a boy are ya???!!"

Man your collection sounds amazing! I'm going to see how this works out for me and I think I will go the retic route as well. I have plenty of room in my basement to build another walk in cage. I've got a neptune controller but I'm not sure if I can rewire it to take a humistat instead of a Ph probe. Oh well I will cross this bridge when I get to it. I want to see if I can get this Medusa to work out. It seems to have passed all of the test so far.

I agree I think she was self regulating and probrably was in feed mode. She seemed to come down today even though I did not adjust the temp (forgot) She was hanging out on the tree limb this time. It's pretty cool to see a 100lbs (a guess)snake climb a branch. Man I don't know why I ever got out of this hobby. I can't beleive the stuff that you guys can get now. I just read about a bateater! Where did this name come from? Well anyway I already asked over at Bob Clarks forum. Maybe you guys will know the temperment of Bateater are they more retic or burm in personality or something different all together?