• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Okay.. for some reason this posted as a reply in "it bit me", but..

korinna

korinna

New member
Aggression and hunger striking:

Some of you may remember me..
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67141

First of all, a mini update: My Naga is a black rat after all.. heehee. She's much darker after two sheds. In three months, she's grown a good 6", and probably doubled in weight. I'm excited to see her when she's an adult.

Now, my problems: At first (first month or so), she was REALLY sweet, and really calm. I fed her quite a bit; she was always acting hungry, and would eat quite well when offered food. By the middle of June, she was eating 3 small pinks in one sitting, once a week. I moved her up to fuzzies, and she's eaten three of those, once every six days or so.
After her first shed (end of June), she got REALLY aggressive, and would strike at anything that got close. She was still eating well, and I was fine with just letting her chill in her tank (no holding) and only going near to offer food. She settled down in about two/three weeks, and then got a bit grumpy because she was about to shed again. Okay.. she shed, and was fine again for a week. Now she's rattling and striking again, and it's been almost a month since her last meal. She's gotten pretty skinny, and acts hungry, but if I put in a fuzzy, she acts scared, even though it's the size of her head (I don't think the size would intimidate her, but ???). I can handle her if I pick her up with the end of my feeding tongs - they're kelly clamps from my mom's work.. the end is a hoop, and I just pop it over her head, let her move through it a bit, and pick her up with them. She's fine in my hands, but so aggressive in her tank. I just don't get it.

My mom thinks I should just put her outside and let her be, but I know she'd never survive. She's never even struck at prey.. she just swallows. She would starve in the wild. However.. my mom is herp-phobic, and doesn't want an aggressive snake in the house. She's even said I could get a corn or a baby ball if I get rid of Naga. I'm not really sure what to do, because I used to love having her. Now she's just.. scared is definitely the best way to put it.

An odd behavior I've noticed is that when I mist her tank, she goes crazy for the droplets of water on the sides of the tank. I change her water bowl often, so it's not like it's dirty or anything.. she drinks out of that, too. But she gets REALLY active when the mister comes out..
Not sure if that's important, but it seemed unusual, so I thought I'd mention it.
 
I believe what you describe is kind of par for the course for a black rat - I think I've read they do not tame down as well as corns do. Don't know what to say, except keep using the tongs to get her out and handling her. But if you want a really tame snake you might need a corn snake LOL.
Some snakes are just weird about larger food items, if she doesn't want the fuzzies you might have to do multiple pinks for a while. Have you tried rat pups?
 
I'm not sure what to do with her.. I doubt she'd survive in the wild, but if she's not going to be calm, my mom does NOT want her. I'm kind of treading on thin ice having her in the first place. My mom HATES snakes. So.. should I not feel bad about releasing her or something? Ugh.. I hate this.

Haven't tried rat pups..

I was thinking more about this hunger strike.. I have a tendency to.. overthaw her food. I warm it under her lamp, and I usually forget about it. The pinks/fuzzies end up kind of.. cooked-ish. They aren't cooked through, but they have a distinctive smell. Lately, I've been really careful not to overthaw. Maybe that's why? Is half-cooked food bad? Because if it isn't.. she LOVES it when I forget about them under the lamp, so I will try a cooked-ish one.
 
Was the snake wild caught?
The only way I could feel OK about releasing a snake in the wild is if it was a native wild caught snake going directly back to the exact same area where it was collected. Even then I would be worried about if it could survive out there after being a captive and fed all the time without having to hone its hunting skills. Not to mention what kind of impact its addition might make on other wild snakes.
I think in your shoes I'd look for a good reptile rescue to take it in.
 
I have 2 black rats. One is wild caught and the other is captive bred. Rat snakes are, like Jen said, typically aggressive. But that behavior is expected mostly from babies. They can be very cage territorial. Usually with handling and time they tend to grow out of it. My wild caught is an adult and he is as gentle as any of my corns. He has never has struck at me. The baby is a little more nippy but is calming down. You have to look at it from the snakes point of view. You are a big warm thing coming at them in there home so they are afraid of being eaten or harmed. So they defend them selves. As far as feeding, if she was eating the way you were doing it before and shedding, then maybe you should go back to doing that. You may just have a picky eater. If she is hungry that will cause her to be aggressive too. If she doesn't eat and continues to lose weight there is a chance she has some internal parasite that is causing her to be sick. The only way to know that is to take her poo to the vet and have it checked.
 
Hey,

:wavey:

I don't know if this is the same or not but I do know my ball python did the same thing. I went from feeding her from the time she was born 1 mouse every 5 days to 2 mice every 5 days and it was like she couldn't get enough so I would feed her like that every 5 days for a couple of months. The more I fed her that much, that frequently, the more aggressive and hungrier she got, so I changed it to 2 mice every 2 weeks instead of 5 days and she's like a little pussy cat again. Now that she's a little older I feed her a medium size rat every two weeks. Don't ask me what the difference is but it was like I think she was thinking that every time I was opening the top, she was being fed, now she knows I'm feeding her and holding her in the two week period. Don't ask me why but that's what she would do, now she's fine LOL.

I don't know if this will help a little or even at all, but it's worth a try LOL.

Take care,

Lil. :)
 
I was keeping a 3.5' Black Ratsnake for about 2 months this year. When I first brought him home he was hiding. Once he got used to his new "territory" he was agressive after feeding (daingeuh, daingeuh). After about a month of feeding and handling he calmed down.
I don't have him any more, so no more info, but I think he was used to being handled and moved about a little. He's now back on the job keeping the rodent population in check around my workplace.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top