About a month ago I acquired a juvenile female papuan. She's pretty fiesty- I had to newspaper the glass for the first couple of weeks, and advance SLOWLY through the room even now. However, she is handleable once outside the cage. The truly fascinating thing is how incredibly alert and incredibly hungry she is. The other snakes I keep are pretty docile, and though good feeders, nothing like this. If I am feeding anything in the room, she is watching. I have been giving her comparatively small prey, due to her slenderness, but mouse after mouse, and finally rat after rat I have to cut her off long before she is ready. Its quite amazing- I am trying to disassociate myself from the food- I wait until she is curled up in her hide, then gingerly open the cage, throw in some food and leave the room. Even an hour later, she approaches the glass and tracks me, waiting for the next item. I'm curious whether I'd be better off establishing a set "time" (I don't think snakes process time even remotely like us) or continue with my current plan of random feedings. (The same number of days between feeding, but random moments throughout that day.)? Hopefully she will only associate inside her cage with food- I'm prepared for her to be a "hands-off" snake, but there seldom is really any such thing. When I have taken her out, she calms down after a few moments, but it took a number of handling sessions before I felt like I was guiding her movement, as opposed to just letting her do what she wants. (Out of the bag, when I received her, she made a bee-line for my head, where she coiled up, hissing at any movement, including a blinking of the eyes.) Regardless she's a tremendous creature, and I look forward to working further with her. In fact, construction on her adult cage will begin in the next few weeks.
Sorry for being so long-winded, but I'm still so engaged and fascinated with her- I'd love to hear other's experiences.
