Need help. Very aggressive burmese python

[beccahosierr]

This python is only about 2 feet long. I bought him from some guy that couldnt care for him. This snake is extremely aggressive. I do have alot of expirience with aggressive snakes, but im sure I have seen rattlesnakes with better temperments. I have tried everything to calm him down. I dont know what else I should do. Any input would be extremely helpful.

He has already tried to strike at me countless number of times. Even if I just walk in the general area where his tank is, he starts hissing and striking the glass. Tank maintenance is close to impossible. I have to cover him with a towel to move him. I really need some help. This is my dream snake that I have always wanted, but I have kids in the house and someone is bound to get hurt.

I would like to know if there is anything I can do to calm him down.

 

[Shrike]

Did the snake demonstrate this behavior before you bought it? If you feel that having it is a risk maybe you should see if there are any reputable rescue organizations in your area.

If you choose to keep it, you might consider getting a pair of appropriately sized tongs and a snake hook. These items will allow you to keep the snake at a safe distance. I'm guessing its previous owner didn't handle it much. With persistent, gentle handling, it might mellow out over time (or it might not). You'll probably get bitten over the course of this process.

I'm hoping Pitbulllady will chime in. She has a lot of experience with large constrictors.

 

[pitbulllady]

MOST, if not all, baby Burms are bitey. In fact, that's pretty much true of most python species, period, and at two feet, this is definitely just a baby. The key is patience and perseverance. That means handling as often as possible, even if it means getting bitten. Use a towel or snake bag to pick him up and hold him, since it not only offers some protection against those needle-like teeth, but gives the snake some sense of security, too. Don't let him scare you, because once he realizes that he can scare you into leaving him alone, your job of taming him will get a lot harder. You also need to check the temperature in his enclosure, since too-high a temp will make almost any snake act either aggressively or panicky, or both. He should have a warm end around 85-90 degrees, tops, with a cool end about 10-15 degrees lower, so he can thermoregulate. Have you provided him with a hide box? Young snakes are defensive because they are on the menu of pretty much every carnivore on the planet, and they know it. The snake is hissing and striking because it feels threatened and vulnerable. A hide box on the cool end of his cage will help alleviate this. Make sure his cage is large enough for him to stretch out but no so huge that he's "lost". Put his cage for right now in a "low traffic" area, and give him time to settle in. Keep in mind that you could be dealing with an animal that actually has been mistreated, even if it has no visible injuries. You said the guy who owned it couldn't care for it, so who knows what he did to it? Has it been properly fed? A hungry snake is often an aggressive snake. Does it have mites? Mites can drive a snake nuts; they can't scratch, after all!

pitbulllady

 

[Ben Oliver]

i would agree with pitbulllady she has given you almost all the information that you will need to raise a snake. there is one other thing you should try to take to a vet to see if it has parasites. the bugs can make it a little more touchy. and you also need to remember that the snake can get to 20' long and bigger and also weigh a few hundred pounds. you will be bitten many times by your snake and it will hurt and bleed a lot. do not pull your hand out of its mouth you will break off the teeth in your hand or arm then its even more pain to have them removed ( even if you do it yourself ) but you can't fix the snakes mouth. i have a nasty king snake that will try to eat my finger even after i feed it a small rat. a feeding response bite is worse than a aggression bite you will see ( soon )

 

[The Snark]

MOST, if not all, baby Burms are bitey. In fact, that's pretty much true of most python species, period, and at two feet, this is definitely just a baby. The key is patience and perseverance. That means handling as often as possible, even if it means getting bitten. Use a towel or snake bag to pick him up and hold him, since it not only offers some protection against those needle-like teeth, but gives the snake some sense of security, too. Don't let him scare you, because once he realizes that he can scare you into leaving him alone, your job of taming him will get a lot harder. You also need to check the temperature in his enclosure, since too-high a temp will make almost any snake act either aggressively or panicky, or both. He should have a warm end around 85-90 degrees, tops, with a cool end about 10-15 degrees lower, so he can thermoregulate. Have you provided him with a hide box? Young snakes are defensive because they are on the menu of pretty much every carnivore on the planet, and they know it. The snake is hissing and striking because it feels threatened and vulnerable. A hide box on the cool end of his cage will help alleviate this. Make sure his cage is large enough for him to stretch out but no so huge that he's "lost". Put his cage for right now in a "low traffic" area, and give him time to settle in. Keep in mind that you could be dealing with an animal that actually has been mistreated, even if it has no visible injuries. You said the guy who owned it couldn't care for it, so who knows what he did to it? Has it been properly fed? A hungry snake is often an aggressive snake. Does it have mites? Mites can drive a snake nuts; they can't scratch, after all!

pitbulllady

Exactly. Protect it from itself. Let it gain confidence.
If it is aggressive to the degree of self destruction you can force lower it's body temperature. This must be done cautiously in gradient stages over a period of several days. When it's body temperature gets just low enough it will become laconic. However, this will interfere with it's feeding. When we have rescue subjects like this they are usually isolated and kept in the dark around 70 degrees, increasing the temperature to 80 long enough for it to feed. Keeping it well fed and giving it several places to hide, it will adjust over time at it's own pace. I'd suggest, while protecting it, enjoy it being active while you can. Healthy well fed adults are laconic to the point of boring with uneducated visitors asking if it is stuffed.

PS Do NOT introduce it to other snakes until it is calmed and more confident. A python can easily maim or kill other constrictors with it's powerful bulldog like nips and bites.

 

[beccahosierr]

Theodore guy had never held him before. He said he fed him in his cage ( which is a big no no). He had no heat source for him. Had him on some sort of pine bedding. And no water bowl. I was able to fix all of that. The snake has tolerated me holding him twice so far. Every other time he strikes continuously. I have been bitten by pythons and boas before, I am aware what it feels like. Haha hurts pretty bad. I have him in my T room where its nice and quiet. He does have a hide box, but he won't use it for some odd reason. I have already checked him for mouth rot and everything. I am planning on taking him into the vet for a check up next week. I'm definitely aware of the size he will get. I have an extra room a am planning to make a tarrarium out of. I have always wanted a berm ever since I started handling snakes a few years ago. I usually hold him until he stops striking at me. Is that good? Or stressing him out?

 

[pitbulllady]

Theodore guy had never held him before. He said he fed him in his cage ( which is a big no no). He had no heat source for him. Had him on some sort of pine bedding. And no water bowl. I was able to fix all of that. The snake has tolerated me holding him twice so far. Every other time he strikes continuously. I have been bitten by pythons and boas before, I am aware what it feels like. Haha hurts pretty bad. I have him in my T room where its nice and quiet. He does have a hide box, but he won't use it for some odd reason. I have already checked him for mouth rot and everything. I am planning on taking him into the vet for a check up next week. I'm definitely aware of the size he will get. I have an extra room a am planning to make a tarrarium out of. I have always wanted a berm ever since I started handling snakes a few years ago. I usually hold him until he stops striking at me. Is that good? Or stressing him out?

Holding him until he stops striking is good. He needs to learn that A)he can't scare you into getting what HE wants, and B)you're not going to hurt HIM, and this is the only way to accomplish this. Sounds to me that the snake was abused before you got him, actually. Pine shavings are toxic to some degree to reptiles, so who knows what effect they've had on him? No water, no heat souce-the snake is fortunate to be alive! I'm guessing the guy didn't have it long, or it certainly would be showing a lot more issues than it is now. One thing you will want to be certain of is that the snake doen't have an intestinal impaction from ingesting pine shavings, since shavings of any kind can stick to prey items and be swallowed along with the food. I use aspen in some of my cages, but I feed the snakes outside of their cages in a plastic tub with no substrate. Seconding what benoliver said, the striking you see inside the cage could be a feeding response, since the snake has been fed inside the cage, and calms down when you are holding it. And yes, feeding response bites are MUCH worse than defensive bites, since a hungry snake won't let go once it's sunk its teeth in. That fact is one of the most-compelling arguements against that horrible incident in Florida a few years ago that really sparked the push for snake bans, when a Burm allegedly killed a toddler. The child in question had multiple bites all over her body, which indicates a scared snake striking repeatedly, rather than a snake trying to overpower what it considers prey. A hungry Boa or Python will latch on and you will have to pour something nasty, like vinegar, into its mouth to get it to let go.

LOL, Snark, you're dead-on right about adult Burms being "laconic"! That's why they are so popular at reptile shows; you can take one out and put it on a table, and it will just lie there, not moving. I've seen people also ask the owner if the snake was dead, or even if it was real, and more than once overheard people insist that the snake was a "fake" after touching it and getting no response at all. A few years ago, on the popular Discovery Channel series "Dirty Jobs", host Mike Rowe visited the Snake Farm in TX, which is a zoo that features reptiles. They had a huge albino Burm that they would take out every morning before the facility opened and place him on a sort of ledge inside the gift shop, and the snake would just stay there. All Day. People would come up and pet it and touch it, not even realizing it was a live animal, something that Mike Rowe found very amusing. He compared the snake to a statue of Buddah that people would rub for good luck and he was surprised that it had any scales left, from so many people rubbing it every day.

pitbulllady

 

[Sesame Sam]

Lots of sound advice here. I agree that its mostly persistence with handling that will calm him down. On another note you may also want to look into tap training. Its always a good idea with larger snakes, even if its male and isn't the largest it would still be a benefit.

 

[The Snark]

With it not taking to a hide, that seems to be very common. They get nervous and want to keep an eye on the action. There are hide boxes attached to the walls in the communal enclosure but the younger ones always prefer to coil up on top of the boxes. That is a key note with hides. The younger and more nervous snakes like to climb up to high places. Once up there they tend to calm down a bit. If we get one that is too aggressive for it's own good it just gets stuffed into a bag which is kept in a cool place. We then take the bags out, put them in the sun for a while, then dump the snake out in a very small kill enclosure with a rat or two. Once it has eaten, if it calms down it gets to go into the communal enclosure. If it is still bite happy it goes back into the bag.

Dealing with the vice grip munch is usually pretty easy. The idea is to grab the end of it's tail, squeeze and shake. This almost always gets them to let go. The bad part is they like to hide their other end under the coils. We have a routine for that where there is usually an auxiliary person or two about. If someone gets grabbed and you can't find the tail they jump in and quickly flip the snake over to get at it's tail.

The communal enclosure. Note the younger snakes are up on the shelves while the adults just laze on the ground. None of these snakes are handled regularly, but they are all quite calm and passive just from getting used to human presence and regular feeding. A stroll through this enclosure like I did to take these shots puts your head within a few inches of them and you do not want one of them mistaking your ear as an exotic dessert dish.

Here are the youngsters, the younger they are, the higher up they like to climb.

 

[pitbulllady]

Wow, I immediately noticed that gorgeous hypomelanistic Burm stretched out along the back of the shelf in the first pic, along with a Retic all but buried under Burms down in the left corner of the enclosure. That hypo would be worth a pretty penny here in the US if it were still legal to import them by the time the paperwork cleared.

pitbulllady

 

[The Snark]

Wow, I immediately noticed that gorgeous hypomelanistic Burm stretched out along the back of the shelf in the first pic, along with a Retic all but buried under Burms down in the left corner of the enclosure. That hypo would be worth a pretty penny here in the US if it were still legal to import them by the time the paperwork cleared.

pitbulllady

Shhhhh! Let the clowns running that place get wind of ready $$$$ and poof goes the python.

What I find enjoyable is wandering around in that enclosure. As long as I don't touch any snake they are completely docile. However, about half or them will take serious offense to the slightest touch.

Could you give me a little run down on hypomelanastic?

 

[burmish101]

Ive had good luck calming down larger wc pythons (im a retic guy) by just working with them gently and very slowly. I've had my share of stitches over the years mostly due to my a.d.d. during feedings lol, babies will be easy enough though I agree with the above posters just work with it. If it bites its only a baby and wont do anything that harmfull to you, I dont think I have any scars from the smaller ones that have bitten me in the past (2-7ft).

 

[The Snark]

Ive had good luck calming down larger wc pythons (im a retic guy) by just working with them gently and very slowly. I've had my share of stitches over the years mostly due to my a.d.d. during feedings lol, babies will be easy enough though I agree with the above posters just work with it. If it bites its only a baby and wont do anything that harmfull to you, I dont think I have any scars from the smaller ones that have bitten me in the past (2-7ft).

Errr..... a 7 footer can take a finger off!

 

[pitbulllady]

Errr..... a 7 footer can take a finger off!

I've been bitten by lots of 7-foot pythons and boas, and still have all my digits. They do not have the jaw power to break bones, and their teeth are needle-like, designed to puncture, not slice and cut. I really have serious doubts of any snake actually being able to severe digits. Now a big monitor, yes, but not a snake. Even that bite(feeding response, too)I got a few years back from a big Emerald Tree Boa, which was by far the worst bite I've ever gotten from a non-venomous snake due to the length of their teeth(MUCH longer than a Retic or Burm's teeth)only made deep punctures and didn't come close to removing any fingers. I have to wonder if the "severed finger" thing didn't originate from some panicky snake hunter having an angry python latch onto a finger, and the guy cutting off his own finger with a knife to get loose. I've known people to do that after they thought they'd been bitten by a venomous snake, to "stop the venom from spreading", doing more harm to themselves than the snake would have even if it had been venomous.

pitbulllady

 

[Tim Benzedrine]

Nobody has suggested the obvious solution yet. If the snake will not tame, taking it and releasing it in the Florida Everglades is always an option....

Ducks and runs for cover

 

[The Snark]

I've been bitten by lots of 7-foot pythons and boas, and still have all my digits. They do not have the jaw power to break bones, and their teeth are needle-like, designed to puncture, not slice and cut. I really have serious doubts of any snake actually being able to severe digits. Now a big monitor, yes, but not a snake. Even that bite(feeding response, too)I got a few years back from a big Emerald Tree Boa, which was by far the worst bite I've ever gotten from a non-venomous snake due to the length of their teeth(MUCH longer than a Retic or Burm's teeth)only made deep punctures and didn't come close to removing any fingers. I have to wonder if the "severed finger" thing didn't originate from some panicky snake hunter having an angry python latch onto a finger, and the guy cutting off his own finger with a knife to get loose. I've known people to do that after they thought they'd been bitten by a venomous snake, to "stop the venom from spreading", doing more harm to themselves than the snake would have even if it had been venomous.

pitbulllady

Quite correct. Python jaws can't crush bones as a general rule. In the case of the guy I met who lost 2 1/2 fingers from a bite it was due to the staph infection setting into the bones and devascularization. The amputation was done by a surgeon. Those teeth are designed to hold and shred the victim and are extremely effective in that capacity. The wounds are often difficult to debride due to tissue damage and usually loaded with a vast spectrum of bacteria.

My apologies for my sensationalist reaction. The bottom line is you don't want a python that is angry or hungry, especially a hefty one up around 7 foot, hanging on to any part of your anatomy. I don't have any point of references however to the (probably) more placid tame ones and the ones I have encountered are highly competitive with others in their enclosures and their food is often wild caught and usually pretty dirty.

 

[beccahosierr]

Thank you guys for the responses. I am currently holding Him right now. He struck at me twice while pulling him out of his enclosure, and has only hissed at me a couple times after that. One more question though, he keeps rubbing his nose on everything, almost like he is nudging it. I know he is not about to shed anytime soon. He rubs it pretty hard too. I'm affraid he might hurt himself by doing that. I noticed it yesterday when I went to check on him. He was rubbing his nose pretty hard against the screen top. I know most of the time this is shedding behavior, bit in this case it's not. Any ideas?

 

[voldemort]

might be some sort of parasites, which could be the reason for it being so feisty.

BTW, congrats with the development, don't forget to keep us posted.

 

[The Snark]

Thank you guys for the responses. I am currently holding Him right now. He struck at me twice while pulling him out of his enclosure, and has only hissed at me a couple times after that. One more question though, he keeps rubbing his nose on everything, almost like he is nudging it. I know he is not about to shed anytime soon. He rubs it pretty hard too. I'm affraid he might hurt himself by doing that. I noticed it yesterday when I went to check on him. He was rubbing his nose pretty hard against the screen top. I know most of the time this is shedding behavior, bit in this case it's not. Any ideas?

I've seen this behavior but have no idea why. When noted, if it keeps it up it gets stuffed in a sack where it can't injure itself. I've examined a Kukri minutely doing that and used tape to try and spot parasites but found none. If you find out what gives, please post.

 

[beccahosierr]

It usually happens after I put him back. I have noticed it a few other times though. Could it be stress? Or maybe he doesn't like the oils on my skin. Or scent?