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Jerking about? Trying to tell me something?

J

JRLongton

New member
So I just got my first corn snake. She's a four year old sunkissed diffused female that I named Cirice. We picked her up at a reptile expo almost two weeks ago.

When we were holding her at the expo, Cirice was more docile than I could have hoped, we could even touch her head, but towards the end of investigating her she started doing this jerky motion. The nice lady who sold her to us said it was a mating thing, she smelt the males on us that we had been handling earlier and that was part of their sexy dance. Sounds legit and I'm sure its true.

Anyway, we get her home and left her alone for a week solid, no disturbances nothing to stress the snake out, just regular water changing. After one week she was elegantly cruising around her terrarium (she has a huge one 4'x2' with lots of hides) and we decide its time to take her out. We slide open her door and are letting her crawl over our hands and generally taking it slow. My daughter started petting the snake like its a cat. Well, Cirice starts doing that same jerking motion and bit my daughter! I was surprised. I've since taken her out a few times and she was great, a little timid, but that seems natural enough. Today I went to take her out, third day in a row, and as soon as I touched her she started doing that same jerking motion. I backed right off as I only want positive experiences with this snake. But So my question is this; is this jerking motion also an aggressive display, her way of saying "leave me the hell alone"? Cause that's what it seems like to me, but what do I know, I'm an amateur, you guys are the experts. So what do you say?
 
Here are a couple of pics of the girl. Aside from this jerking issue (and not liking heavy metal!) she is doing great!
 

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if you "Back Off" when the snake nips, bites, jerks, or acts in a particular manner, then the snake will use this behavior against you and will purposely act this way in order to make you leave him/her alone.

The "Herky Jerky Dance" is a typical Male Mating behavior, however I have heard stories of female snakes also doing this. They all do this jerking thing right before shedding though (more like quick twitches), as a means of freeing themselves from their Old Skin. I have observed my snake making strange jerking motions while in blue phase and just after up until the day of actual shed.

It could be your female is actually a male, or it could be your snake is about to shed, which could also account for it's biting, some snakes don't like to be messed with during shedding, or it could be you just "Think" you observed something that isn't as you think it is.

"Any Snake" is capable of biting and might do so at any time.
 
Thanks for the reply!

We were told that not only did she recently shed, but that she's a proven breeder, that she laid eggs last year!

We bought her from a breeder who was winding up her practice so it might be that this snake wasn't handled very much prior to us.

It seems that snakekeeping is a practice.
 
Hi. I'll start by saying I am *not* an expert, just a person who's been keeping snakes for a couple of years now. But from what I've seen in my own snakes, they don't all like being petted like a furry animal. LOL. I do believe this is a behavior that is associated with mating, and my interpretation of this is "please stop touching me that way". Normally, mine only seem to do it when I'm petting them, and if I stop petting and just let them move around in my hands they knock it off. As far as the biting, I would guess she was probably just reinforcing her message of letting you know she didn't like the petting. My advice would be to stop the petting until you get to know her better, but not stop the handling.
 
I've had a lot of females twitch like that. I'd just make sure she's well-fed before handling- I mean, feed, leet her digest for two or three days (I prefer three) then let you daughter handle her. Handling a couple days before feeding is fine for most snakes, but if you have an enthusiastic feeder, you can get hunger bites.
 
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