Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi Everyone:

Can anyone comment on their Gabbies "Normal" behaivor over time. He's my observation over the past 36 hrs which leads me to believe my Gabby and Puff Adder have swapped bodies.

I ask because my normally calm Gabby that I've had for 3 years now has turned really really nasty, all 6.5 pounds (~3 kilos) of her. It started yesterday afternoon when I returned to find a huge pile of "Condensed Rat" piled up against the glass. After 3 years of this she knows the routine: she's hooked into a big tub with a locking lid with two hooks and the lid secured. I go about cleaning the enclosure, removing the soiled area of substrate and replacing it with fresh. I also have to clean the windows and tracks as they are filled with poo too. I then return her to her cage and lock her in. All went according to plan and left them alone for their dark period after I took care of some of the other animals that required attention.

This morning I went in and she went balistic, thrashing around the cage, huffing & puffing. She has never done that ever! I chalked it up that she was hungry and empty after that dump, besides she was on the feeding schedule for her one a month Rat. Rather being is feeding mode when I opened the door she was in total "rage" again. She would not take the rat off the tongs but did savage the FT rat after about 10 mins of cooling off. I was still working around the room when she finished and again started to really thrash, up-rooting all of the fake vegatation she is used to having in there with her. I ended up covering the front of the cage to get her to calm down while I finished feeding other snakes.

My Puff Adder was next on my feed list. She is always pissy and huffing & puffing, with the occassional thrash about the cage. Normal & expected. Well today, she was sitting quietly by the door where the food normally enters. I slid open the door and expected her to clobber the dead rat like it wat hit with a sledge hammer but she slowly approached and gently took it off the tongs and proceeded to eat it. Go figure??

Here's the same snake who calmly drinks from a sprayer up until yesterday.

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"Fighting on the forums is like competing in the Special Olympics, even if you win, you're still retarded."

DH June 2005

Well I noticed that when my puff or gabby goes into shed and they cannot see as well, they both get a bit more huffy and the puff is of course much worse. Also, perhaps the poop in there made it a bit upset. I know my diamondback wants it the heck out of there 10 minutes after it is done. I mean in nature a poop attracts mammals that would attack the snake, so perhaps the gabby was keen on that? Either case, when mine are huffy, I mist them for a while to cool their body temp and then move them with no huffing what so ever.

Dan