Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One of the snakes I recently got has a very strange feeding habit and I'm wondering if anyone has come across this. She tends to anchor herself to me when I pick her up, which in itself is not abnormal in my experience. The strange part is that when I try to move her to her feeding tank, she doesn't let go. I tend to drop the mice in all of the tanks first, then move the snakes into them, because it seems to go faster and the snakes that haven't been handled much never strike at me. This particular snake keeps the back half of her body wrapped around my arm and starts eating the mouse before I've fully moved her into the tank. She doesn't coil it, just grabs the head and swallows it down, holding on to me the entire time. When she is done, it is really easy to move her back to her home, since she is still attached to me! At that point, I actually have to peel her off of me. What is going on here? Anyone else experience anything like this? Or for that matter, any other crazy feeders out there?

I feed my adult Black Milk pretty much the same way you're describing and she does pretty much the same thing... nothing odd about it... she's in feeding mode and being a constrictor she constricts... all instinct... doesn't "know" my arm and the prey item are separate things... food... constrict... all there is to it.

Gerry

Interesting. I've never seen a snake constrict it's food with the back half of it's body before.
She seems to be anchoring herself to me. She does the same thing when I'm holding her and not feeding. The one time I got her into the feeding tank without my arm, she pushed up really hard on the top before I could get it attached, like she was looking for something to hold on to. There was no constricting anything that time.
I admit I've only dealt with feeding about a dozen snakes, but I had never heard about anything like this before. I'm looking at it as bonding time.

constrictors will use as much of their body as the can on the prey item and yes usually starting up on the front half since they also usually have the prey item in their mouth and don't want to let go... could your snake and mine simply be anchoring themselves... sure, but I tend to not think so simply because if I flex my fore arm muscles while she's wrapped around it she tightens up even more with whatever length of her body she has wrapped around me, no flexing and she's pretty much relaxed and just working on starting the rat down her gullet... either way it's normal.

Gerry

THIS is normal behavior, if we were both on a bridge ,and you started to fall, then I grab your hand would you Squeeze tighter? lol ,lol

I'm not against being on a bridge with anyone, but do we have to hold hands? We don't even know eachother and my wife might get mad at me! Haha....just jokes!