Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey...has anyone had a rosy that bites? any suggestions? every time i go to take this snake out of its cage, it acts very defensive. i believe the reason is rooted in the fact that it is young (1 year) and shortly after i got it 6 months ago, it was ill with a respiratory infection...and i had to inject it with meds nearly daily for a month.

I have a pair of rosy boas. The male is fine. But the female on the other hand bites me for no apparent reason. She actually prey bit me when it wasnt feeding day and I didnt handle anything that would smell like food. Just depends on the snake I guess...

The association with handling and injection seems very plausible to me.
I don't know how easy it will be to break your rosy of this habit once they slip into it.
Rosies seem to associate(very easily) the opening of their enclosures as time to feed.
Earlier this year I was forced to move my snakes out of my place for ~3 months, and in this time several became very nippy b/c I was unable to handle them in between feedings. I'm still trying to break them of this several months on...
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Thanks,
-JC
rosyboas.to

1.1 San felipe (CB'93)
0.1 ghost San felipe (CB'98)
1.0 ghost San felipe (CB'03)
0.1 het ghost San felipe (CB'04)
1.0 ghost-line San felipe (CB'98)
1.1 hypo Borrego (CB'99)
1.1 albino Whitewater (CB'02)
1.1 double het for snow (CB'95)
1.0 snow rosy (CB'04)
1.1 Joshua Tree (CB'96)
1.0 Bagdad (CB'99)
1.1 Harquahala Mts. (CB'04)
1.1 Temecula albino (CB'02)
0.1 Temecula albino (CB'05)
1.1 Hemet anery (CB'05)
0.1 Boa constrictor (CB'92)

I have a whitewtater that chomped me every time I tried taking her out of the rack. I recently had to move my snakes to a different room because I've got twins on the way. Anyway, after I moved them and had them in a slightly cooler place for a bit, and in different substrate as well.... I noticed that I could start picking up my whitewater chomper without any biting.

Maybe the new surrounding or a slightly cooler temp for a bit can enable some handling and a gradual lessening of the chomping. She had ripped me a bunch of times. I've only been bitten twice by other rosys and it was because I was doing some quick feedings and my hands smelled like thawed fuzzys YUM

When I was a kid I had a real grouchy gopher that I handled with gloves until it finally just stopped chewing on me

maybe that can help???

thanks for the ideas. i have been meaning to change the substrate on the individual. i doubt its temp., as its cage is not that warm. anyhow, i have been trying to handle it more...i just hate that if i dont for even a few days, it gets all nippy again.