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Won't Let go...

B

barret

New member
Hey all, I've had my pal atticus for about a year and a half now and all of sudden he's turned aggresive on me. For the last 4 or 5 feeds before or after he is fed he will attempt to attack my finger, even before I get the food out.

I had read when I first got my snake that he should be fed in a seperate container to prevent him from thinking that my finger was food, and that was all I have ever done since I got him.

Even though his bites don't hurt much he latchs on and will stay on for a good 20 -30 seconds until he finnaly gives up. I was curious as to what I should do to :

A. Prevent his biting
B. Get him off if he decides to stay on me

Thanks for your time!
 
Is he eating live or dead food? Could he be due for a bigger food item?

Sometimes they can get aggressive if they're over keen to eat becasue of being a little hungry.

I find my adult males on their maintenence diets of one mouse every 14 days are rather 'keen' to eat!
 
Here are my suggestions:
A. Prevent his biting--You may want to pull him out of the viv by means of a snake hook or similar apparatus. Sometimes the overhead reaching movement is seen as a threat to your snake. Take him out of the viv with a hook and then you can move him to your feeding container or handle your snake. Additionally, more frequent intervals of handling may get him more accustomed to you.
B. Get him off if he decides to stay on me--Snakes have a sort-of built in release mechanism, which works well when they constrict, so it may work when they are biting too (not sure though). Gently lift their tail straight up (perpendicular) according to the line of their spine --it could be sideways if they are turned one way or another. This movement should release him.

Hope this helps.
 
thanks a lot guys. I feed him hoppers, which he just recently moved up from fuzzies. He never attacked me when he was on fuzzies. Anyways, the next time he attacks I'll be sure to move his tail. I just want to make sure I don't hurt him at all. By anychance could his aggressiveness be from the temperature increase in my house since the heater is on and is near his cage? normally his cage is around 82 degrees, but with the house's heater on and due to the tanks location near the heat vent, its around 84 degrees.
 
I had my Okeetee male decide to do this once. I wasn't taking him out as much and it was mostly to feed, so he got to the point where he was smelling all the mice thawing, and thought he'd feed on my arm. I solved it by handling him more often during the week, and feeding him first so that he doesn't have as much time to smell the others eating the mice.
 
Well I was in the same exact situation as you, I didn't think much about handling him more because I thought that would irritate him more, but I guess i was wrong.
 
You might have a completely different situation, but I felt that he was associating being held with being fed. I had already fed 4 of the others so he had been smelling mice. I was holding him while I washed out his water bowl and he just clamped on to the inside of my elbow and started trying to take it down. By the time I found a liquor bottle that was open and not too expensive to waste, he let go :) I was going to put a drop in his mouth to make him let go. Usually, they know when they go in the feeder box that they get fed, but I guess he was impatient.
 
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