Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The other day I was putting my 30 inch red tail boa back in to his cage when he decided not to go. He wrapped around my hand and wrist with all his might but being 30 inches long i easily unwrapped him by the tail. My question is; what if you have a 12 foot burm that decides its not going back in its cage, do you struggle with it? does it require several people?

I am a big safety fan. I have a standing practice to not handle any snake over 6 feet alone. There are just too many varibles to handling a large snake. The situation you mentioned should not happen with good husbandry techniques. Have a second, or even third person with you when you handle your big snake.

Hope this helps.

Marco

Hahaha, funny you say that my boa does that to me all the time, she is a stong little devil, she is only 4ft, but my burm who is now 8ft, actually is totally different, when she is out or going back in her cage to my boa wraps on everything and stays there, as my burm just sits there, like a log, I just put her in, no problems. But I have heard stories from people who have had situations with there burms getting them back in or even holding them. I am sure Brian has a few.

Boas, being much more arboreal, are probably a lot stronger pound for pound than burms...that is, they love to hang on to things and do it with great power. I have found that it is always much easier to put a boa back into its cage if the cage is higher than the snake/hand; by letting the snake climb up into the cage, you generally avoid this problem. Burms, on the other hand, are typically MUCH easier to handle because they are a more placid animal...they tend to move in rectilinear fashion. But, I do feel it is very important to make sure you have another person around anytime you are taking out a large burm (even a small adult burm).
Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
City of Lake Forest Parks & Recreation (IL)

This is a very commonplace thing with the two species. And one reason why I greatly prefer working with the giant, yet easy going burmese over just about any species of boa. I love the boas equally well, but they are just such a pain in the @rse. I have more trouble moving a 4 or 5 foot, 1 pound amazon tree boa from one arboreal stick mount to another, than I could ever have moving a 13 foot, 150 pound female burmese across a snake room, through a door, into an adjacent breeding room, and into another cage. Sure a big burm weighs 150 times what the little arboreal devil weighs, but they are so easy going and relaxed that they are almost problem free. At best they may tip a water crock with their tail when I go to first pull them out. But usually the only trouble I have with them is that once out they don't want to go back in and will keep insisting on coming back out. When I first read Rott's post that I probably had some stories about problem burms going back into cages,.... I searched my mind and drew a blank. I can't remember a single time that a burm grabbed me tight when I was attempting to put her (or him) back. Rock pythons now,..... they're cool snakes,.. but they do have their weird moments. If anyone wants to hear about them and some of their quirks let me know and I'll begin a new thread.

The funniest story concerning a burmese that I can think of took place back in the mid 80's. I was breeding pythons and boas and had a lot of big burmese. Most of the females averaged about 12 feet and maybe 90 pounds or so, but one particularly big female (What I considered "big" then) was about 14 feet and easily 160 pounds. This was a relatively young girl at only 4 years old. I fed all my snakes a lot back then and she got two 12 pound rabbits per week, or about six 4 pound chickens, whichever was available. Anyhow,... I was always very obsessed with keeping very accurate records then and measuring and weighing everything each week. I had this big old scale that I used to stand on while holding the big snakes and then I would weigh myself to get the snake's weight. I was in the process of weighing "Silvia" when my girlfriend came over. She entered the snake room dressed in a very nice dress that she had bought to go to her sister's wedding that day. (She had wanted me to see the dress). So as she came in I was atop the scale, with Sylvia across my shoulders, and half of her body lifted up in my left hand and arm, and the other half lifted off the ground in my other hand and arm (to prevent any part of her touching the ground and causing a mis-read). Anyway, Sylvia's latter half was toward my girlfriend over by the door. My girlfriend said to me, "Wait, her tail is still touching the floor over here." (or something like that). So I lifted that side ever higher, making darn sure that her tail was clearly a couple of feet above the floor, looking like some kind of an awkward Jesus on a cross constructed of fat pythons, lol. So when I was sure that Silvia was completely off the floor I told my girlfriend to read the scale. So she bend low to read the old dial and this was when Sylvia released about 20 pounds of digested rabbit (feces) and urine. ALL OVER MY GF AND HER BRAND NEW, BEAUTIFUL DRESS! Just 20 or 30 minutes before she was supposed to be at the wedding! Now,.. I felt just HORRIBLE. I really did. My girlfriend looked up and screamed and she burst into tears. I was still holding the big snake and I felt awful, but it was simultaneously so funny that I couldn't stop myself from laughing. It was a terrible moment. I felt horrible, but couldn't stop laughing. My GF ran screaming and crying from the room and out of the house. I was still laughing, though trying not to, and trying to put Sylvia away so I could catch my GF before she left so I could apologize. No dice, she was gone in a flash and I was left to wallow in my guilt for laughing as my girl got dumped on by a giant snake, on the day she looked her best, while heading for her sister's wedding. It couldn't have been worse. Amazingly, we spoke later that day and she was actually very understanding and not mad at me. We made up and all was well,.. but to this day I feel TERRIBLE that I couldn't control myself at that moment.

Anyhoo,. that's my funniest burmese-related story

>>Hahaha, funny you say that my boa does that to me all the time, she is a stong little devil, she is only 4ft, but my burm who is now 8ft, actually is totally different, when she is out or going back in her cage to my boa wraps on everything and stays there, as my burm just sits there, like a log, I just put her in, no problems. But I have heard stories from people who have had situations with there burms getting them back in or even holding them. I am sure Brian has a few.
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"Half of my enemies are dead.... I have yet to meet the other half." [Ghengis Kahn]

"He was such a sweet boy, always so nice. He used to help me take out my garbage every Friday." [Jeffery Dahmer's neighbor]

"Sure,... you say that now. But what will you say when you are looking into my dark, merciless eyes." [Walter Wego]

"Charlie won because we never knew where he was. We had superior numbers, but he had stealth, patience, and sheer determination to prevail. We lost the moment we decided to engage, only it took us 10 years to lie down and die." [General Enevi Tability on the Vietnam war]

Hahahahhahaa, I cant stop laughing that is funny. She is not your wife now is she? That would be true love. Get dumped on and stay. Ya, start that rock thread. Funny thing, is that I was going to say somthing about rock stories.

Yeah, lol, it is pretty funny, huh? I was cracking up as I typed it. ha ha.

No, she is not who I am married to now, though she certainly was a person that I could have a great marriage with. I just didn't have in me what it takes to have and maintain a marriage then. I often wonder where she is to this day.

>>Hahahahhahaa, I cant stop laughing that is funny. She is not your wife now is she? That would be true love. Get dumped on and stay. Ya, start that rock thread. Funny thing, is that I was going to say somthing about rock stories.
-----
"Half of my enemies are dead.... I have yet to meet the other half." [Ghengis Kahn]

"He was such a sweet boy, always so nice. He used to help me take out my garbage every Friday." [Jeffery Dahmer's neighbor]

"Sure,... you say that now. But what will you say when you are looking into my dark, merciless eyes." [Walter Wego]

"Charlie won because we never knew where he was. We had superior numbers, but he had stealth, patience, and sheer determination to prevail. We lost the moment we decided to engage, only it took us 10 years to lie down and die." [General Enevi Tability on the Vietnam war]

I hate that, its like the Garth Brooks song, whats she doing now, man.

yeah,.. or "who?", lol,lmao,llolololololololololololol

>>I hate that, its like the Garth Brooks song, whats she doing now, man.
-----
"Half of my enemies are dead.... I have yet to meet the other half." [Ghengis Kahn]

"He was such a sweet boy, always so nice. He used to help me take out my garbage every Friday." [Jeffery Dahmer's neighbor]

"Sure,... you say that now. But what will you say when you are looking into my dark, merciless eyes." [Walter Wego]

"Charlie won because we never knew where he was. We had superior numbers, but he had stealth, patience, and sheer determination to prevail. We lost the moment we decided to engage, only it took us 10 years to lie down and die." [General Enevi Tability on the Vietnam war]

I had something similar happen several years ago when I was going to photograph a model with Monty, my then 14 foot long Burmese. I decided to give him a nice warm soak on the morning of the shoot as a precaution against accidents. He had already "gone" a few days earlier, but I wanted to be sure. The warm bath made him poop again, so I was sure he was OK for the shoot. I was running late and arrived at the building where my studio was located at about the same time the model was due to arrive. I took Monty out of his traveling bag, draped him around my shoulders and headed up the stairs to the second floor. At that moment, the model arrived and decided to help me carry the snake. She grabbed Monty's tail and I heard him hiss and stiffen in surprise. "Oh my God! He got me!" shouted the model. For a moment, I thought that he had bitten her, then realized that Monty's head was in front of me. Somehow, Monty had stored up what looked like a couple of quarts of urine for just such an occasion and let the model have it in one horribly smelly blast. She was drenched from chest to mid thigh. Fortunately, I had a shower in the studio where the model could clean up and we were able to rinse most of the urine out of her clothing and dry them with a couple of fans. She was a good sport about the whole experience and went through with the photoshoot.

Doug

Funny, we are discussing this topic on the anaconda forum. You might want to look at some of those comments. Its a very serious issue with anacondas (not that burms aren't serious too).

I hadn't been to the anaconda forum in many months, so it was quite refreshing to read different thoughts from different people. I went and read the entire thread you spoke of here and it was quite deep. I particularly liked one long post by DFR. It was concise, accurate and very informative and filled with insight.

I don't currently have anacondas, but I did keep them for many years during the 80's. I think that they are mostly a very unpredictable reptile and nothing even remotely like the more predictable burmese, but I do feel that there are probably "exception snakes". By this I mean that there likely are and will undoubtedly be other individual anacondas that fell outside of the 99% "norm" and may make terrific pets. Notice I say "probably" and "likely", because I have yet to actually see or own one. But I have noticed through the last 3 decades of keeping reptiles that vitually every species I have worked with have individual specimens that are nothing like the "status quo" normal majority of that species. Evolution at work, no doubt. And certainly a window into the reptilian pets of the future herper, bred now for their tractability and less aggressive traits. Something I am certainly focusing on in my own projects.

Anyway, I certainly suggest too that anyone that likes and keeps large snakes to go read this thread in the anaconda forum. Very good info to be found there.

>>Funny, we are discussing this topic on the anaconda forum. You might want to look at some of those comments. Its a very serious issue with anacondas (not that burms aren't serious too).
-----
"Half of my enemies are dead.... I have yet to meet the other half." [Ghengis Kahn]

"He was such a sweet boy, always so nice. He used to help me take out my garbage every Friday." [Jeffery Dahmer's neighbor]

"Sure,... you say that now. But what will you say when you are looking into my dark, merciless eyes." [Walter Wego]

"Charlie won because we never knew where he was. We had superior numbers, but he had stealth, patience, and sheer determination to prevail. We lost the moment we decided to engage, only it took us 10 years to lie down and die." [General Enevi Tability on the Vietnam war]