Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My wife bought me my first snake, a 3 year old captive bred ball about 4 months ago. She is an awesome snake, feeding well and very easy to handle. I have been busy for the past month and a half and have not been able to handle her as much as normal, but feedings have been regular. Suddenly my ball went from perfectly docile (crawling around my neck) to going into the S position everytime I go near. I also recently bought a bigger tank to keep her in, but kept all of her normal habitat items.
Could this be because I have not handled her regularly or because of the new enclosure or do balls just become cranky sometimes?

There are a number of reasons that an otherwise, well established, docile critter will start getting nippy. The first thing I would ask myself is, what changed? In your case you changed the environment, so your snake may be feeling a little insecure about it's new home. I would definitly check your husbandry- cage temps, humidity etc. It could also be that your critter is starting a shed cycle and is feeling a littly moody. Hope this helps...

mine does that sometimes, make sure that your bp has places where it can go to be completely out of sight (ex: in a cardboard box with the opening pointed away from where all the trafic in the room is, or in the corner of the cage covered up by some artificial plants, etc.) no, this is not a result of lack of handling, it is simply a 'phase'. handling on a regular basis would help it get through this 'phase'. are you feeding live or frozen/thawed? feeding live could result in the snake becoming slightly more agressive as it grows up. it's a good idea to get it to feed on f/t. the main thing to remember is to make sure the snake can get completely out of sight somewhere in the cage. good luck!

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--0.0.1 ball python
--0.1 orange cat
--2.0 dogs
--0.0.3 frogs
--3.0 beta fish
--and some cockroaches
--maxgmercer@yahoo.com--

Please don't take this personally. Is there something wrong with the tongue of the gorgeous bp in your picture? And if so, can it still aim straight? I think I have somehting similiar with one of my snakey tongues. TIA

Looks fine to me.
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Astronomy Picture of the Day

nothing's wrong with it...
it has a forked tongue like all the others, it's just that one of the little forked peices is pointing strait at the camera, so you cant really see it.

look closely...

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--0.0.1 ball python
--0.1 orange cat
--2.0 dogs
--0.0.3 frogs
--3.0 beta fish
--and some cockroaches
--maxgmercer@yahoo.com--

Man bp's are a pain to photograph cleary and that close-up is great....What kind of cam are you using? Digi or is it a scanned image??
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www.bustyballpythons.com

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sig file edited for tos violation. [phw 8/12/04]