Reptile & Amphibian Forums

so does anyone ever really tame some of the older snakes that have been handled little in their life.

I have 1 girl that is about 9 years old and I don't think she was handled alot (I have had her for a few months). I call her hiss because she hisses everytime I touch her. Well I have been working with her alot of these months and I thought I had her starting to get better she was just hissing every now and then and letting me handle her a little more. But tonight I had her out of her cage, (I let her crawl around) and she was really freaked out again and back to hissing. maybe it was a bad day.

I have two more older adults (came as a breeding pair a few months ago) that are breeding right now (so I can't even start working with them) and I think they were handled even less than hiss.

So am I asking for the impossible of having them be semi tame? just wondered what kind of luck some of you have dealing with snakes like this.

as far as ball pythons..i think you can tame em down some...but there's always exceptions. I haven't received a ball that old but i've had younger that came from a breeder & wasn't very nice, now she hasn't tried any funny business in a long time. so i'm sure with enough work you can get them calmer. What I do is the first week I initiate contact i just open the cage & pet the lower third of the snake & the week after pick it up but i keep it in the cage basically & after a lil I'll take it out & around the house..I don't like to do that unless i know they have tame down..because it seems like once you bring them out & they haven't calmed down yet, they see it as an opportunity to excape..lol they act calm until they feel they can make a run for it..lol so maybe try just playing with it in the cage for awhile.. hope my 2 cents helped
have a good weekend

yep, she was on the run last night. Maybe it something in the air because my 9/03 albino snapped at me too last night which he hasn't done since I first got him. (he wasn't handled much while the breeder had him for 6 months).

Hiss and I were doing better maybe she just relasped last night.

Thanks for the idea about playing with them in the cage I will try that with the breeding pair when they are ready for kind of taming them.