I just recently completed acquiring my unrelated pair of brown water pythons (L. fuscus) -- hoping to breed them in a few years. Purchased the male who is perfect in every way from Tom Keogan (like every snake I've ever gotten from Tom). And I got the female, a yearling, from East Bay Viv. Both are feeding like Star Wars rancors.
The female, though absolutely stunning to look at, is one of the most ill-tempered animals I've ever encountered. You can be 5 feet from her enclosure and watch her do the saw-scale dance -- complete with bothered writhing, masticating, ceaseless tongue flicking, and frequent strikes at the plastic walls of her enclosure. God forbid you open the lid without a shield handy as she has the ability to strike and become airborne simultaneously.
This cranky creature is in quarantine right now (i.e. next to my bed and not yet in the snake room). My hope is that with daily handling, which my poor arms have endured for almost two weeks now, she'll calm down like the rest of my snakes. I'm seeing some noticeable improvement (e.g. she's mostly stopped spraying me with musk and excrement whenever I pick her up). Also, for better or worse, her biting is becoming less predictable. For example, now rather than striking right when I remove the lid, she waits until she's settled comfortably on my arm before chomping into it.
I'm posting for two reasons:
1. If anyone has any SPECIES-SPECIFIC advice for taming an L. fuscus shrew, I'd be really interested to hear what's worked for you.
2. I'm concerned about her frequently striking the walls of her enclosure. Beyond the unthinkable damage I have to imagine it's doing to her developing, pea-size brain, I've noticed that the very distal anterior tip of her mandible appears to be bent inward. I can't tell if it's an alignment thing or maybe something she does voluntarily as part of her threat display? I'm concerned it might be related to her striking the cage, although that part of her head isn't the part you would expect to be affected is it? Snakes either strike with a gaping open mouth or, sometimes as a threat, just with the snout. No? I'm not really sure what's going on...
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1.1 white lipped python (Leiopython albertisii)
1.1 macklott's python (Liasis mackloti)
1.1 brown water python (Liasis fuscus)
1.0 bismark's ringed python (Bothrochilus boa)
0.1 hamper-line starburst woma (Aspidites ramsayi)
2.0 WC calabar python (Charina reinhardtii)
1.0 ball python (Python regius)
1.1 hypo apricot pueblan milksnake (Lampropeltis triangulum campbelli)
0.1 montane egg eater (Dasypeltis atra)
