Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a beautiful yearling retic who is very sweet, has never hissed or struck at me - until I try to feed him. During feeding he goes crazy - hissing and striking and being very aggressive towards me. He only does this during feeding! Even with the tongs I'm afraid he's going to launch himself straight at my face. He ignores the rat completely and just strikes at me. I feed him in his cage. Any help or suggestions would be so appreciated.

Well of course during feeding they are going to act different. Just because he is animal and you are touching his food. I would probably try to feed him in a seprate container and see what happens.

I'm not sure where the problem is. Can I assume your Retic is fine (not aggressive) when you're handling him? Then in that case, I don't believe it's so abnormal that your retic exhibits different behavior when it's feeding time. I'd exhibit some pretty aggressive behavior too if I was eating at McDonalds and then all of a sudden some knucklehead starts playing with my food.

If you find that maybe he's still too much to handle feeding live prey, you might want to switch to pre-killed food and hopefully that will mollify his aggressive eating behavior.

-Neil

I feed mine prekilled and that has calmed him down quite a bit durring feeding... hes even taken an extra fuzzy from my fingers (though i REALLY dont recomend you try that).

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-echo-

That's a pretty normal retic feeding response. They're very "food motivated". And you definitely don't want to feed out of the cage...very dangerous idea in the long run. Buy a hook, if you don't already have one, and use it when it's handling time or you're going into his cage for "general maintenance". He/she is just being a retic...enjoy it! -J
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"If we could see ourselves, would we get it right?" -Kevin Martin

I'm glad to hear it's a normal feeding response, even if it's a bit of a violent one. He's fine during handling. So I guess I won't complain, I just don't want him to tag me when he gets to be a really big boy, you know?