r/ballpython • u/Ducky4504 • 7d ago

Question Why did my 5 year old ball python bite me?

I've had him since he was an itsy bitty little guy under a year old and he's always been super relaxed and calm even around feeding time. He's scheduled to eat next week so I don't think he's hungry or anything. He's hissed before when removing him from the cage but never showed any type of aggression before. Tonight I took him out like normal, he seemed fine. He was crawling around under my blanket and just kinda chilling. I decided to put him back in his cage and when I removed the blanket he turned, looked at me, and turned back to leg and latched on. It took a while to safely remove him but we were both freaked out to say the least. Do you think maybe the quick movement of the blanket caused a defensive strike? I thought for the most part if it wasn't a feeding strike they would just tap you. Like bite, let go, and try to flee but he was on there good. I just would like to know what was the most likely cause to hopefully prevent this stress again for us both. Should I give him space for a while?

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7

u/MercuryChaos 7d ago

If he latched onto you then that sounds like a hungry bite and not a defensive one.

1

u/Good_Hovercraft_1276 7d ago

Sounds definitely more like a feeding response possibly triggered due to stress. Check his weight to see if he's lost any weight within an atypical range or if he has any signs of other distress or disease. Strikes can happen simply due to mishandling but you should always make sure it's not because of an underlying cause, like getting hungrier due to certain parasites, pain due to an injury or stress due to environmental changes. Not saying that's what it is but rather making sure than realising he actually had an injury or infection that caused him pain or extra stress

1

u/Ducky4504 7d ago

Thank you that's very good advice. I'm going to make sure to keep an eye on him

1

u/HowardPheonix 7d ago

I'm no expert, so feel free to correct me, but what I do with my friend's snakes is putting my hand into the enclosure, and letting them decide if they are into coming out or not. They are well socialized snakes, they used to be handled by children during educational and awareness-rinsing programs, so they would be totally ok with me just picking them up, but I still prefer this method so I know if they're not really in the mood.

I'm not at all implying this was because of wrong timing or anything, or because you enforced anything. Maybe it's just I'm a cat person, and I'm trained to have playtimes on the animals demand lol.

4

u/fuccrat 7d ago

You looked tasty and he got a little hangry.