Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After many many failed attempts at taming my vicious snake, I've realised maybe it's not me... maybe its because i feed it live mice, do you think this is the problem? or should i just keep trying to hold it, taking bites to the knuckles everyday

Live food, in my opinion, does not cause what we call aggressiveness. You have to remember that there's no such thing as a 'mean' ratsnake, there are only scared ratsnakes and hungry ratsnakes. Live food would not make your snake more scared of you, nor would it make the snake more likely to mistake you for food. If the bites are feeding responses, you need to figure out a way to keep the snake from associating you with mealtime. You can tell feeding responses because the snake will 'chew' on you and maybe try to constrict. If the snake is scared... I guess all you can do is put up with bleeding knuckles until it gets used to you, it might take a while. I didn't catch what sort of snake it is...

But I think you should switch to dead food if you can, it's a lot safer... (and in many cases cheaper).

I remember what kind of snake it is now... duh...

its a crossed corn, 25% yellow rat, 25% baird rat and 50% snow corn..

He may be suffering an identity crisis!

Actually, I would disagree and say that there IS a such thing as a mean snake. See my reply last week regarding taming a yellow rat snake (it's down there a ways now). Some snakes are just meaner than others of the same species or subspecies.

In any case, feeding live prey in all likelihood has nothing to do with it.

I was just trying to say that the snake isn't biting people because it's sitting around all day planning its revenge. It bites because it wants to be left alone, and it wants to be left alone because it's not used to people... ie scared of them. Having this motivation in mind can really help when trying to tame a snake.

Good point. If it's not feeding time, agressive behavior - including biting - indicates that the snake feels threatened. Somehow I find it interesting that some rat snakes feel more threatened than others, even in a seemingly identical setting. I'm sure that other herpers have noted that each of their critters seems to have his/her own "personality." I often wonder if the mean, agressive ones were abused as hatchlings! Seriously, is it possible that snakes that went through some sort of traumatic experience, either in nature or by the hand of a nasty keeper, could develop an equally nasty attitude? We need a snake psycologist!

We have a yellow rat that was neglected/abused from a pet store. She/he is a consistant biter, however we know why Popper does this.We have tamed her/him quite alot just by talking to it while Popper is in the cage. While she still bites it is no longer as frequent or as hard. Now she bites as warning not out of being scared of being hurt.