• 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.

Someone is mad at me :(

R00K

R00K

Tap or Snap!
Hey All
I haven't seen much of my Avatar for a while. 6 months old.
On Boxing Day night I went to pickup Avatar to get him/her ready to eat. Wow was it in a mood. Hissed and struck at me. I passed it off as him/her not likeing the soap I had used on my hands. Fed two pinkies. Put Av back in the tank and he/she took off to the warm hide. Couple hours later I look and can't find AV anywhere. Look at the edges of the tank and notice Av is in the substrate at the cooler end. Aspen. Av stayed there for a week. I thought it (I hate calling Av "it" need to get Av sexed)had escaped. I couldn't see Av in the substrate from any angle. Even below. I started root around gently to see if I missed him/her. Well, That got the beast up. Came out of the substrate ready for a fight. I backed away. I noticed lastnight that Av came out yesterday and shed. When I fed him/her I didn't see any clouding of the eye. I thought that might be the cause of the mood. Went right back to the substrate.

Before, Av would come out to explore at night like clockwork at 10pm. Now I NEVER see Av out and about. Or traces of. Also it's now been two weeks with no food. I usually wait for Av to start roaming to feed.
Should I be worried? Should I try to dig him/her out to feed? I have adjusted temps in case that was why Av was hiding in the cool corner. Cool is 74f.
Any Ideas?

P.S
I miss Av :(
 
No need to worry, just like people snakes too can have off days. The shed definatly didnt help his mood. Theres no reason to hold off feeding because you dont see him, because they arnt out exploring doesnt mean theyre not interested in food if presented to them. Sometimes it takes the scent of food before they start roaming again. I'm guessing you havent held him since? I bet if you take him out to feed him now he will act like normal, and if he doesnt its still no reason to worry. Now if he refuses to eat then there is probably something he's not comfortible with which should be looked into.
 
You must make sure you snake knows who's boss or you risk unintentionally 'conditioning' him to be aggressive, i.e. s/he'll learn that if they hiss and strike they ward off all attention.

I think if someone bashed me while I was sleeping I'd give them a nip too! It's nothing to worry about. Just don't be scared and don't back off so easily.

One thing I would suggest to help you is feeding outside the vivarium. A secure plastic container will do just fine. I also agree with not waiting for the snake to be roaming around before you feed. 9 times out of 10 I have to tap on my boy's hide to wake him up before he even knows there's food there!!

Don't worry about the secretiveness (is that a word?) and snuggling into wee hiding places - corns are known for this sort of behaviour.

Oh and your cool side temp is just fine, what is the warm side? Somewhere around the mid 80s is usually recommended. I hope you see an improvement very soon.
 
Thanks Guys
I need to be a little more asertive with s/he. I guess I'm just too worriesome still. I backed off because I thought Av might be sick or something.
Should I just reach in the general area and grab Av or poke slowly to get him/her aroused first?

I'll try feeding Av tonight. I feed Avatar outside the viv in a plastic rubbermaid dish.

Thanks again
 
Just reach in and pick it up under the belly, don't worry if you get tagged, he's to small to do much damage.
 
Aye, the first time I had a snake bite me, I smelled like a mouse.. oops, it just felt like she had bumped into my hand. She didn't get her teeth stuck into me or anything, I only knew she had bitten me because I suddenly had 2 little tiny bleeding spots on my hand where she had bumped into me. The second time I scared her and she latched onto my eyelid.. THAT one I felt.. owwww... Dad had to disconnect her from me, and she left a decent sized scar as she tore my eyelid some. Moral? Don't put your face in the viv of a hungry snake =P
 
Ouch, Av has bumped me before but my reflexes kick in and I jump back usually before I get tagged. It's not the bite it's the movement that gets me.

The only problem I have when trying to pick AV up is that he/she is usually trying to get away so I have to corner Av and that usually makes it worse. Usually after a minute or two in my hands of trying to get away Avatar will settle down.
 
I can't believe you got bit in the eyelid Gintha! :sidestep: yipes.

Anyway, my ghost female sounds kinda like yours. I try to handle her the most since she's the squirmiest and she's the only one who's tagged me.

When she bit me it was because I did the same thing as you: I dug through the substrate because I hadn't seen in her in awhile and she skipped a meal. I think the reason she was hiding so much was because I have her in a pretty big viv (for her) and it freaked her out. So I thought that I might be able to make the viv seem 'smaller' by covering half of it with a t-shirt. With the thought being that I was making half of her viv into a hide. And it worked. She started coming out more and more and I handle her when I can and she's starting to calm down, but she still is squirmy at first.

How big is your viv? it might be too overwhelming for your little snake...
 
A corn on the eyelid isnt too bad, try a young retic attached to your eyelid and forehead.
 
my corn hids in the aspen a lot. just find where about the middle of his body is and than pick up. At first when ever my BP hissed at me i backed away and left him be, but that got me no where so just be assertive and get it tame.
 
bryanc said:
How big is your viv? it might be too overwhelming for your little snake...
Click to expand...

The viv is a 10 Gallon at the moment. All sides are exposed. I've been thinking of covering three sides to help Av feel a little more secure.

Thanks for the advice everyone.
 
I new I forgot something, came home today and Av was above the substrate in the warm hide. Colours are more vivid too. :) I'll try a feeding tonight and see what happens.
 
You could try the coathanger trick. I have to sometimes because my snake's soo big, it's just easier to get him out of the vivarium using that as well as my other hand.

Something on a smaller scale for your little one obviously, but you might find it helps with the problem of actually removing Av without 'cornering' her.
 
Just wanted to let everyone know that lastinght wen well with Av. Avatar was sleeping under his warm hide. I tapped the top but that didn't awaken Av. I opened it up and started to pick Av up but he/she started to take off so I scooped him up. It only took about 5 minutes for Av to settle down a bit. Settling down is not trying to escape from me so fast. Av is still not crazy about the hair on my arms. LOL must be female.
After handling Avatar without any issues for about 10 minutes I placed him/her in with the two pinkies to eat. Wow he has grown since the first time I placed him in the feeding tub. Now he can go around it once.

Av ate up and was even pleasant when I place him back into the viv. I just tilt the tub for him to slide onto the substrate. This time is wasn't a fight to get him in there.

I placed Paper around 3 sides of the tank (did the same for Dash our bearded dragon) and I think it helped to calm Av.

Thanks All for your suggestions.
 
Well it sounds like he or she is calming down even quicker than expected, that's great news! If you think of how tiny s/he is, it's easy to imagine how daunting the vivarium might be (moreso being taken out of the vivarium) - may also explain why s/he's not keen on hairy arms!
 
Just a thought, but if you try to spot where your snake is first and then go in the Viv with a fist and not looking. Your more likely not to jerk back and if he does tag you and it will be harder to bit you. Of course open your hand to pick up after that. If you keep on jerking back your trainer it to be aggressive.
 
I put in a fist first too when I have to grab a moody snake. I test it that way to see its reaction before showing any fingers to bite in :grin01: I also do that with cats. It also seems a fist does trigger aggressivenes less than a fully opened hand. You could also put on a knitted glove for your confidence, but at hte size your corn is, it would only be psychologically. I have 04 a San Diego gopher which I prefer not to be bitten by though it won't be very painfull yet. But it keeps me from jerking back and that's important!
 
With Poseidon my anery I always show him my fist too. He's a sweet snake but always hungry (except in breeding season) and thinks fingers are food whether they smell like mice or not. I'm not sure if it's because the fist looks too big to eat or the implied threat LOL but he's never struck at me that way. He's the only snake I have that has drawn blood and his previous owner was pretty much afraid of him.
It can be very hard not to have the instinctive knee-jerk reaction to pull back when bitten, but doing so can damage the snake's teeth.
 
Update

UPDATE**
Avatar is much better now. After following advice here, she is much calmer. I still have to chase her a bit in the viv but she's not striking. Now that she's calmed down, she only strikes at the camera. She hates that thing lol.
She will calm down and hang out on my arm and hide in my hands. She loves to explore and I am allowing her to move around on the bed or couch a bit. She jumps a little when I grab her to move her but doesn't strike.

Thanks for all your help all.

Avatarsm.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top