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I have a 9 month old female Columbian BCI I got a month ago for a pet. Her temperament is very defensive. She hissed when I held her one time, once she struck at the cage door and hissed when I was doing something near her cage, and today she bit me in the face when I took her out. I've been handling her gently for a little while each day (except after feeding) and she settles down nicely. I've kept snakes for several years and have 7 boas and pythons and have never experienced this before. I've been struck before during feeding due to my own carelessness, but not because the snake was defensive. I thought boas were supposed to be placid so I'm wondering what's going on. Do you think she'll calm down with regular gentle handling or is this kind of weird behavior for a boa? Thanks.
Sharon

Sometimes you just end up with a Boa that is tempermental. I've had several that were biters when young that calmed down nicely, and a few that refused to become more handleable.

Good luck with it.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

Sorry to hear about the hit to the face you took--that's not a lot of fun. Sure gets your heart going, though...

As the other respondent mentioned, some boas, for whatever reason, remain intractable and nasty for the duration of their lives, but it's pretty uncommon. This is obviously a lot more common with WC specimens than CB. A month into captivity is still pretty early in the going--perhaps your boa hasn't quite acclimated yet and is still a little jumpy.

One trick I've used with good success is the T-shirt method. Wear the same t-shirt for two or three days and toss it into the enclosure. Leave it there overnight or for a few nights. The idea behind this is that the animal get used to your scent, and assimilate it as part of its natural environment, so that it will not feel so threatened when you intrude on its space to handle it.

Also, oftentime boas that are defensive inside their enclosures will settle down when taken out. Using a snake hook to remove the animal from its enclosure might avoid triggering their territorial instincts.

Double check your husbandry: temp, humidity, etc. Is the enclosure sitting on the floor? Is the animal in a high-traffic area of the house? If so, the vibrations might be bothering it. Sometimes, it also helps to screen off the enclosure so that movements outside do not startle it.

Good luck.

By the way this is a captive bred Kalh strain albino. Kept in a 20 gal glass tank with UTH on aspen with 2 hides. (bigger wooden enclosure ready for her next home) Temp gradient is good. Dedicated snake room so hardly any traffic. Eats F/T rat pups like a champ. No sign of mites or RI.

One other thing I thought was odd is she won't use a hide. Instead she burrows in the aspen. If she was scared wouldn't she want to be in a hide? Ay ay ay, the last thing I need is a 7 foot snake with PMS! :>

Sharon

One of my boas chooses to burrow rather then use the hides. Just that particular boas character i guess. Most boas should calm down if handled enough. For instance i bought a boa from Jeff Ronne not too long ago that turned out to be quite a little devil. Coiled up and hissed everytime i walked by its cage, struck at the glass ect.

This snake was older then 9 months as well. Anyway it absolutely hated me, one day i decided that i was sick of getting struck at when changing the water and started handling it. In only one hour of gentle handling this stubborn little brat turned into a teddybear that seemed to enjoy being handled knowing that he would be able to get out of his small cage and crawl around.

The most important part of handling (for me at least) is doing it in such a respectful manner that the snake has no reason nor the oppurtunity to strike. When your snake bit you in the face it was probably somewhat stressful to you. It was also stressful to the snake. The snake will remeber that the last time you held it it was aggravated to the point where it felt it needed to defend itself and it will probobly keep that in mind the next time its handled. Of course you did nothing wrong, but the snake thinks you did. There so stubborn sometimes.

So the trick is to handled day after day while doing your best to avoid sending into a deffensive state. When you handle it don't make much movement at all, if you make some sort of sudden move that pisses it off then just stay completely still and wait for it to get bored and move onto something else. If it stays in the "S" position and refuses to give up and keeps targetting one of your body parts you can try giving it a light rubb on the tail, which will sometimes give it the notion that something is behind it and it will want to deviate from trying to bite you and placidly start slithering away. Of course rubbing its tail could also give it the notion that somthing is behind it and it will turn around to see what it is, in which case you just stop. Make sure if you ever do this that the hand you are using is out of site of the snakes vision. You don't want it to see your hand moving towards the back but rather just feel a little pressure.

I do this alot when handling deffensive snakes. Whenever i handle them i try to make as little movement as possible, but then after about 20 mins i'll get used to it and accidntely move my head or my leg, the snake will look at me and tighten up in the neck a little bit just incase it needs to make a move, i rub the tail and it starts calmly slithering away from where it feels my finger.

Another thing I've done is stick my arm into the enclosure with the snake wrapped around it. Usually it will want to climb upwards and stay out of the cage. I might do this a couple times while handling. It seems to me that this also calms them down. First they don't want be handled, but then when offered to their cage they realize that crawling on a nice branch-like arm out in a spacious area free of their tiny enclosure isn't so bad.

But what it comes down to is handle it as much as possible, progressivly without giving it cause to strike. If it seems to get suspicious of your arm, leg, ect. Just stand still and try to wait for it to forget what its eyes were trained on in the first place. I have had many, many snakes both cb and wild caught. I also got alot of bites under my belt, but snake bites aren't that bad, as you probobly know. But in my experience the less the snake gets agravated the quicker it tames down.(obviously) I've also just let snakes bite themselves tame. But its not much fun for them. And i definitly don't enjoy it much either being on the recieving end.
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2.3 Bearded Dragons
1.0 Pastel Ball Pythons (NERD Line)
0.0.1 Water Monitors
1.1 Pastel Red Tailed boa Het. for Albino
1.1 Yellow Ackie Monitors
And Counting...