Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently purchased a male tiger (11-03-06) . He was 4 ft when I brought him home and the calmest , friendliest snake I've ever handled . He is currently pushing 7 ft and becoming less social the older he gets . I built a custom enclosure (7'x3'x3') my temps and humidity are fine . This behavior actually started before I moved him into this enclosure a week ago . I try to handle daily or at least every other day for about an hour , time permitting ,and barring any feeding or shedding issues . Once I've had him out for approx. 7-8 min.s he calms down and becomes the same friendly snake I brought home 9 weeks ago . At just under 7' I am relatively comforatable going in after him , but as he continues to grow this could become dangerous..... need help !

Are you establishing yourself before you go into the tank? Is he hook trained? Do you have a hook that you go in with everytime so he knows when he sees hook, no food? Just sounds like he is having a feeding response or is just a bit nervous about his new surroundings.

Give him some time to acclimate and if you are not using a hook start doing so.

... thanx for the input . He is fed through a seperate feeding door at the end of the enclosure . This is my only retic and a hook is on my to get list at the expo this Sunday . I had to pull him out again last night , but with much better results . Thanks again !

And make sure you get a hemostat as well to feed him. I just got a 16 inch for under 20 dollars. Try www.tongs.com. They are a great site to get both your hemostats and hook. Heres a pic of my supertiger retic i got 2 weeks ago from Bob Clark. Shes about to shed so i am not holding her till she does

is this your only retic? how old is he?if you have other retics especially males and thie retic is near sexual maturity you could be seeing some mating behavior. even my gentlest males show some annoyance when breeding season is here.