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Aggressive Little Baby

EffingWaterBuffalo

EffingWaterBuffalo

New member
Howdy folks,
So my adorable little corn snake is rather new to his home, I think he's been here for almost 2 weeks. We got him June 17 to replace our last corn snake who passed away on the way to get a sex check due to extreme heat, rest his poor little soul. Anyways, hes quite the little fireball. He is being fed 2 pinkies every 7 days and he's coming up on a feeding Tuesday, he is a very good eater.

We were handled him off and on the first week we got him and we were in his cage quite a bit making small adjustments to reach the ideal temp and such. He's always been kinda bitey, picking him up is a sure fire way to get struck at (which my boyfriend and I don't mind, we're used to it). So we went out of town for 4 days and we fed him before we left, we just got back today and decided to hold him and that it was time to start handling him regularly since he had plenty of time to finish de-stressing and have some alone time allowing him adjust to his new home while we were gone.

When I reached in the cage to pick him up he got scared when I touched him (which was typical behavior) but I was able to lift him out of his viv without him striking at me. I sat down and he was rattling quite a bit (also normal for him, thinks he's big and bad) and he coiled up in a striking position. I didn't make any movements allowing him to process the info, he was staring at my thumb for quite some time and then out of nowhere struck me and drew blood. Never thought a 17g baby would be able to draw some blood haha. I kept holding him and I gently stroked his back, he kept in his striking position and turned his attention to my boyfriend who was sitting next to me. After a few minutes of a frozen, defensive snake we decided to let him get it out of his system so my boyfriend very very slowly moved his hand up toward Kratos. When it got close to Kratos' face he didn't strike, though still kind of rattling he slowly went over, nibbled his finger twice then gave a confused half-ass attempted to try and eat it.

After that he calmed down and wrapped around my hand and started slithering around looking very comfortable. He's still terrified whenever Josh or I walk past his viv though. I know handling will help this little guy but I was wondering if there is anything else I could do on top of that.

My viv is 72 on the cool side and never dips below 81 or above 87 on the warm side. He's got hides on the warm, cool and the middle of the tank. The humidity is sitting consistently at 47-50 percent, he's got plenty of water and plenty of stimulation (climbing branches and plenty of substrate for burrowing). He's being fed 2 pinkies in a separate cage on Tuesdays, so he could be hungry too. But this behavior has been pretty consistent the past 2 weeks. Any suggestions are appreciated!

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I got my snake from Petsmart so I don't know an exact age, but he was about 12 grams, so still pretty little. Now he's 26 grams. I can tell you that between settling into his new home and getting bigger, he's really settled down. He even sticks his head out of his hide or vine in response to me. Give your snake some time. They really do settle in and settle down.

My suggestion is short sessions of calm handling when feeding allows for it. That and patience. You've got a beautiful little snake there. Congrats!

P.S. I joined the bite club the first time I tried to handle mine. I had a drop of blood, too. Nothing since.
 
Are you feeding him in his viv or in a separate container? If you're feeding him in the viv I suggest getting a kritter keeper and feeding him in that. Feeding him in his viv can create a strike response when you go to handle him, because.. you know. Palvo's Dog's and such.

Instead of 2 pinkies I'd pump him up to fuzzies and then transition into hoppers and so forth. Generally the recommendation is to feed very young snakes every 5 days, but if you're comfortable with your routine I think he will be fine.

Just let him grow up a little.. baby snakes are fidgety. Some snap out of it and grow into calm adults and some... just don't. He might just be a fire cracker! As he gets older and more mature/ secure with the world around him he will most likely calm down.

Good luck and keep us updated!! :cheers:
 
I'm feeding him in a separate container. I think he's to small for fuzzed he's only eating 2 1.5g pinkies and sometimes a 1.5 and a 3 but the 3s are still a little big.

My breeder, the one I bought him from was only feeding him once a week too so he's pretty used to that. But he's gotten quite a bit better these last 2 days. I wear a glove when getting him out and take it off once he's out of the Viv but he's not really striking much when we get him out as long as we're quick about it. He did bite me randomly last night but I think that's cause he was tired of us inspecting a dark blue spot on his belly.

I think he's making improvement though, the breeder I bought him from never handled him cause he was considering keeping him so he was raising him to be a breeder.

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The striking and the eating people are two different things. Striking means he's scared and wants to bluff you into leaving him alone. The tail rattling is somewhat the same thing- a more low-key leave me alone type warning. Tail rattling doesn't necessarily (or even often) indicate fear. It's often seen when the snake is feeding.

If he inspects you and then bites slowly, he's checking you out to see if you're food.

I'd suggest on non-digestion days, taking him out and just holding him for 30-60 minutes- watching TV or something, where he isn't the center of attention and he can observe you and see that you aren't going to eat him.
 
Digestion usually takes 48 hours right? I figured the slow curious bite was just him trying to figure out what on earth we are.

We have been handling him on non digestion days for as long as he's comfortable. I mean you can tell, when he's comfortable he moves with his body and he moves into you but when he's had enough he moves away more with his head and away from us. Right now he's really only comfortable for shorter amounts of time but we can now hold him for 10 or 15 minutes as opposed to 2 when we first got him so he is improving.

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