Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my male dumerils about 4.5 ft about 1400 grams just bit me - until now, even from arrival he had been perfectly docile - never any indication of agression in any way - never flighty when removing from tub - the last few days he had spent most of his time in the water dish - the only other time he did this was just before a shed - so i guessed it was the same again - i had opened his lid earlier - he seemed interested in coming out but i did not take him out then - his eyes are perfectly clear and its really too soon for a snake his age to be shedding again - at any rate my daughter was in from the army and she wanted to see one so i lifted the lid to retrieve him - he acted a little weird - not sure why but i had a weird feeling that i should just leave him but i didnt - anyways as i lifted him out he wadded his tail around the heat mat and seemed resistant to come out then he nailed me on the wrist breaking the skin on both sides of the arm - i had to twist him loose - i tried again to retrieve him and it was obvious that he would bite again so i left him alone - only 2 things are different about this handling attempt - first of all it was after the room light had cycled off so the room was dimly lit and secondly i had recently changed his feeding from weekly to every 10 days - maybe he thought he was hunting - i've read so much about people who have said that they had never seen a dumerils even pretend to want to bite - so much for that - thought you might share some thoughts and how to proceed from here - this is my first bite ever - thanks robert white

Most of my Dumerils are extremely Docile. Although I have a big fem
that can get aggravated and will lay into me if I'm not on my toes

All part of keeping Boas

. . . Lar M
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Boas By Klevitz

I Support USark.org

NP
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...three years ago it was just another snake cult...
The Retic is King.
Anacondas-the other Dark Side.
Afrocks-the dark side of the Dark Side.

A number of years ago I had a male Dumerils. He was a very slow,
deliberate moving & calm boa. He never hissed at me once. He
kind of reminded me of that little old, near-sighted cartoon
guy. (Was it a dog?).

He tried to bite me once when I was trying to get him out of his
cage. He missed which is a good thing because he REALLY meant
business. He actually bit himself when he missed my arm.

Afterwards I think I figured out what happened. I had fed him
the day before. At the time I completely forgot about it. I had
a number of snakes and they were on different feeding schedules.
When I went to pick him up I inadvertently grabbed his body
exactly where the partially digested rat was. I grabbed it hard
too.

He had a very long shed schedule, much longer than any BCI or
BCC that I've ever kept. I could swear that it looked like he
would get a little smaller sometimes too after a shed.