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age and temperament

SnakesMcGee

SnakesMcGee

New member
I apologize if this thread has been done before, but I searched and didn't find one.

Question for the forum:

What correlation have you noticed between age and temperament?

My little one is ~5 month or so, and she's still pretty flighty. She's ok being handled but runs (or slithers, really) and hides as soon as she sees me outside the viv. I figure that's normal and, with age, she may or may not decide to calm down - and I'm fine either way.

Have you noticed a decline in flightiness with age? Or do you have a snake that always was and will be a fraidy-snake? Or maybe your snake was calm from the get-go?

Curious to see what people's experiences are.
 
My corn has calmed down as she's aged, with the exception of when she goes outside for enrichment. Then I have to keep her in hand or she'd dive off into the brush and terrorize the local shrews. My yellow rat has never calmed down much, though he's used to being handled by me. Both are hesitant around other people.
 
Babies up to 8 months seem the flightiest, once they hit about a year they are mellowed a lot and much easier to handle. It's like people, when they are little kids they have endless energy and are hard to keep track of, when we get older we are pretty predictable and not in as big of a hurry to get somewhere!
 
Thanks for the replies! Princess will be 6 months on 2/14 and she seems to finally be calming down a bit. She was hanging from a branch for a while last night, which is the first time I've ever caught her outside of a hide without bolting back to safety. She explored a bit more that night before hiding again, which made me happy.

She's also finally diffusing a bit (she's a "bloodred," for what that term is worth these days) which is amazing. My little girl is growing up! I'll have to post some pictures once I get a smartphone soon.
 
Another thought on flightiness that I just had...

I've noticed that Princess will hesitate a moment before fleeing when I come to pick her up. This could simply be her being stunned for a second before she realizes what's going on...

...but I've started wondering: What if it's something else? What if she's learning that it's ok to be picked up, but at the same time her instincts tell her to run. Those two impulses - to stay and to flee - battle it out for a few seconds, until the instinct wins out and she runs. A lot of people have mentioned that handling corns requires confidence, which would bolster this argument.

Just some idle thought. I'm really curious to see how her temperament continues to change (or not!) as she grows up.
 
My snake has calmed down considerably as he has gotten bigger. He is actually curious and will come out when we approach his viv, and thankfully he seems to get that getting picked up is not bad, he comes right out of the viv super easy now. He is calm and thankfully seems almost sweet, he has never struck, but he will give you the big wide mouth if startled ( usually if one of the dogs happens by while we have him out)
 
Not too sure about baby corns, but most adult corns I've seen advertised have always been said to have a mild temperament and never bite. Jax, my adult, is super chill and isn't too flighty.
 
It varies.. I have an older one that is skittish, I have a baby 6 months that is chill and will crawl on me when I open her lid... I have an older one that is equally chill, and two smaller ones that are nervous... just like humans, I was a laid back kid, my little sister was a cry baby ;)
 
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