The Rock that we have is about half grown, roughly, give or take a little. She's seven and a half, closer to eight feet now.
Experience with her... LOL. We brought her home as a rescue initially (i'm a sucker that way I guess. LOL) from a pet store that had just gotten her in that morning and did not know how to handle her. They specialized in colubrids and boas... and never shipped anything in that would grow beyond 5-8 feet. So they really had no clue how to handle this one.. when she was brought in, she was about 4 feet long,and had not been cared for properly. My guess is someone bought her somewhere, did not know what they were getting, and she was too much to handle for them, so they got rid of her. She was bone-stick thin, emaciated, and the tip of nose, right on the front of her mouth, was raw from where she had been pushing and rubbing at the meshed screen she was in prior. (I know it was mesh, because the pattern was 'set in' on her mouth. You could see it clearly.)
She was brought in as a trade... the person who brought her in traded her for a different, smaller snake. We've had our ups and downs with her, but overall it's gone well. We had to re-tame her in the beginning. She had gone semi-wild, by the time she was brought into the pet store, and the staff there wouldn't even stick there hand into her tank except to drop food in and then pick it back out when she ignored it.
I never had to assist-feed her, she just needed to be in a proper environment that was comfortable, and once that happened, she started eating the way any Rock should. She'd eat you out of house and home if you let her. LOL We don't let her.
Took her to the vet to have the mouth looked at and cared for, power-fed her a bit in the beginning to get her weight up to where it should be. Once those two problems were cared for, she was good to go, and we only had to worry about taming her. We did it, but it took a while. ^.^ She tagged me a couple of times, but they were never bites to hurt, they were basically just little nips that amounted to 'leave me the heck alone.'
Handled her 5-8 times a day, in the beginning we'd only have her out for a couple of minutes at a time - never more than she could tolerate - and when she started getting jumpy, we would put her back in her tank. This went on for a while, with the time out getting longer and longer... at this point she's kitten tame for us, but heavens forbid anyone else handles her. LOL If you show ANY fear to her whatsoever, she grabs onto that. ^.^
Something that my Rock responds well to, I don't know if this is just mine or what, but we have always made sure, that when we put her back in her enclosure, she is set to the bottom of it very gently, so there is no jarring 'drop' when she goes in. We put her back in head first, and let her glide the rest of her in, supporting her mid-body and tail as she goes in and then taking the tail tip and making sure the end of her lands on the surface of her cage gently. She's always responded well to that, whereas if she suddenly 'lands' she gets a little spooked.
We learned very early on how territorial she is. ^.^ And do not ever do anything with the tank itself while she is in there. She does not appreciate it, and makes sure you know her objections to it. LOL This is also the primary reason she is fed out of tank, though when she moves to the next size up enclosure, she will move to being fed in-tank. While she is eating, one person handles cleaning her tank and putting in fresh wood chips and water, etc. Try that with her in it and you will get tagged. LOL
This is not a fool-proof method, but we've never gotten tagged doing it 'this' way, she just gets in, and puffs herself up, you can see she gets pissed the second she spots changes having been made to her tank, then does warp nine around the cage, sticking her nose into everything there, and examining *everything* closely. She'll pause every few seconds to turn her head and glare out of the glass at you and make sure she has your eye to express just how 'displeased' she is with you. LOL
They CAN be aggressive, if they are not handled properly, and when she is in shed, she is somewhat aggressive, so while she is shedding, we leave her alone, except to check on her and make sure everything is alright, we'll do that about once every few days during a shed. She gets aggressive if she's scared, she gets aggressive if she's uncomfortable, she gets aggressive if she's angry. Aside from that, she's a very tame P. Sebae.
The one major incident we did have with her... she was about 5 foot long at the time, my husband had been giving her some 'out' time, was holding her and just giving her some attention. Anyway, he turned his head away for a second - that's all it took. She bolted off of his arm and made a mad dash for the old-style radiator that was on the wall about a foot away from where he'd been sitting with her. Well, he tried to catch her, but no good. She managed to get herself under and behind the radiator, and was NOT coming out.
She sat right there soaking up the heat *LOL* and anything he tried to get her out from behind there she basically responded with a top-notch hiss, and pushed herself further out of his reach. When she'd had enough of him trying to pull her out of there, she then got out from behind the radiator, with him sitting right in front of the radiator, and he didn't see her move, just suddenly she wasn't there anymore. What she'd done, is gotten herself behind his desk, and worked herself up INSIDE of the desk, underneath the bottom drawer of it. We pulled the drawers out of the desk, she wasn't in sight, but when we pulled the piece of wood that formed the sourface underneath the bottom drawer, she was happily curled up in there, and promptly wrapped her tail around the drawer's support beam when he again tried to pull her out of there.
So... he left her with me, and went out to the pet store to get a feeder mouse (she was on large mice at this point), and brought it home. It was one that was already smelling of blood, as it had just been in a fight with another mouse, and the cut on it's head was still open. So he tossed that into the little space she'd claimed, and while she went for the mouse, I unwrapped her tail (she'd only thrown one coil around the support thankfully) and we pulled her out, mouse and all.
She wasn't thrilled, but as she had the mouse halfway down her gullet, there was precious little she could do about biting or striking, so she satisfied herself with glaring daggers at the two of us instead. No - he does not sit or stand anywhere near a radiator when he has her out now. *LOL*
On feeding days, she can get a little jumpy, and we have a certain method we follow every time for that reason, it keeps her more or less calmed, and gets her fed. When she's out and being handled, though, she's very curious, examines everything she can get to, will curl herself around our shoulders, with her 'anchor' under the right arm. It's always the right arm, she never anchors under the left arm for some reason. But once she's got her anchor there, then she'll just move around and examine everything. And if there is another person in the room, she absolutely MUST have their attention as well. She soaks up individual attention given to her, and has been known to sit with her lower body on one person, and have her upper body on the second person in the room. If someone else is in the room and not giving her 'centre of attention' status, she DOES rectify that immediately. LOL
We have a healthy respect for what she can do - she takes down small Colossals right now, about once a week without any trouble at all - but there is no fear. ^.^ I work in a small pet store at this point. I'm the reptile handler now. LMAO The rest of the staff, save the owner, wants nothing to do with the reptiles, and are too afraid of them to do anything with them. One of the other girls on the staff is coming around slowly, but it's taken me a few months just to get her to be able to stand in the same room while I've got one of the hatchlings out - I'd never have her in the room with me if I had the 6ft burm out. *LOL* She'd totally freak.
The other tricky thing with her, is when she outgrows her current environment, and we move her up to the next size enclosure. When that happens, you leave her ALONE for about three days, and you DO feed her in the tank, within the first day or so. Until she's been fed in the new enclosure, she will not calm, and she'll go semi-wild. (she did this with one of her moves, took us a little while to calm her down again) So when we do have to move her up to the next size enclosure, we make sure we have food for her, put her hidey and water bowl in it, then feed her in the tank. Once she's been fed, and digested for the most part, then we pull her out, and the other person puts a layer of wood chipsalong the bottom of it.
Now when she goes back in, she'll get peeved off because we messed with 'her' tank, but she doesn't go partly wild on us, and it's ONLY the territorial reaction to it, nothing more.
We named our Rock Ka, by the way. Fitting name for a creature this strong. ^.^ This is a recent picture of her...it's not great, I'm going to try and get a better one, hopefully in a few minutes I'll have a better picture to put up. This one you can barely see her - though you can see plenty of her coils, and her nosetip sticking out at the top between the coils and the hidey. ^.^
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1 Ball Python
1 Rock Python
1 Bullsnake
5 Cats
Love 'em all ...
