Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One of my baby Pacific gopher snakes after being fed. When I took her out of her habitat to feed her in the feeding jar she was all Sput! Sput! Sput!

Then she ate and when I returned her to her habitat she was still all full of hissy spits, even striking at the glass. When I reached in the feeding jar to remove her she did everything but actually bite me. Of all my snakes she has the most attitude. Definitely a candidate for hand taming conditioning!

What attitude! Gotta love em! Nice animal. I like the "hourglass" shaped saddles. She should be a knock-out when she gets older.

Thanks! Here is her brother shortly after I bought them at the Sacramento Reptile show last September.

This pair is from the Santa Cruz mountains in California. Not het for anything, just nice robust babies.
I have noticed that when I have pairs of pits the female is more likely to have attitude and the male is more likely to be calm. Also I think I will start feeding them all bigger meals as since the days have started to lengthen everyone is wanting to eat more.

My one wc baby last April right after I rescued her from a feral cat. She has never spit, hissed or rattled her tail at me. She was very hungry!
Here she is this last December:

Pyro, are those from Shannon Brown? Love those catenifer! Talk about some locality variation. And then there are the naturally occurring striped morphs...

Yes, the pair from the Sac Reptile Show are from Shannon. The wc one is from Calaveras County 3200ft elevation. One summer I found a very small baby in my yard that appeared to be a hypo, very light sandy colored; but alas, it had been killed by a cat.

Wow really pretty female. My female is extremely calm never a hiss.
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- Matt

1.0 Black Milk '04
1.0 Andean Milk '06
0.1 Eastern King '97
0.1 Bullsnake '09

Miss Hissy Spits aka Zanta is the only one of my six female pits with this much attitude. Holding her is like holding a little length of active air hose; She even sounds like an air hose! LOL!

Of the 4 CA gopher ssp I've come across (never seen pumilis) Pacifics and Sonorans always seem to have the most attitude, annectens are the spazziest and Great Basins, IMHO, seem to be the friendliest. I'm sure other folks have some differing opinions and experiences.

reako45

My wc Pacific Gomez has the sweetest disposition of all my Pacifics. She has never hissed or rattled her tail at me, and when I first found her I hand fed her a batch of pinks, which she ate right up like she had always been in captivity. Cb Pacific Zanta (Miss Hissy Spits)has the most attitude, but today barely rattled her tail at me when I picked her up to put her in the feeding jar. My bulls are very mellow. All's I have is bulls and Pacifics (and a few kings) so not a lot of experience with different species.