My Dumerils has started biting me!

[marvelfreak]

Originally Posted by KWenger

Hello everyone, and marvelfreak, I want to begin by saying there are no hard feelings whatsoever on my part. I appreciate your passion and fully understand why you were angry with me. All of you experienced, knowledgeable folks were doing your best to give my good, sound advice, and I was ignoring it. For that I owe ALL OF YOU an apology. So, this is what I have decided: I am NOT going to return my Dum to the breeder from whom I bought him. Please know I didn't really understand until you guys explained it, that my snake was malnourished and apparently not properly cared for by the breeder. It would be cruel to return him to that environment, so I wont do that. Ever. After carefully rereading all of your comments I have decided to keep my snake and do my very best to make him healthy, happy, and hopefully calm. I promise I will NOT compare him to a "puppy dog" or any other warm blooded animal. He's a snake. A reptile. He's never going to have the mannerisms of a cuddly, furry pet and I get that. My plan is to immediately begin feeding him larger rats....still not sure of the best size, but I'll figure it out......weekly until he puts on some weight. I'll then go to a two week feeding schedule. Any opinion as to what a good "goal weight" would be for him before I switch to feeding him every two weeks? I have a good digital scale I use with my other snakes and can easily weigh him. Right now he is 700 grams and will be three years old in September. You're right that I do love him.......and you've made me aware I was overdoing it by handling him so often. My mistake. I'm going to limit handling him to 2 or 3 times a week (with gloves for now) for 15 minutes or so, and hopefully increase from there after a few months if he seems OK with it. Until I'm confident I can trust him to not bite unexpectedly, I will not let any of the kids near him. Easy enough to do, and prudent I think. I'm going to incorporate all of your sage advice into a new care plan for my Dumerils.....his name is Barney by the way.......and with patience I'm hopeful he will become a pet I and my family can enjoy for many years to come. I hope all of you have a great day, and thanks again.

Really glad to hear your keeping Barney.
Has for posting pictures checkout this link. http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/gener...res-posts.html

[SnakeyJay]

Really great news that your going to keep and carry on working with this guy. Hopefully you'll have a good future together. Bites are a part of keeping wild animals and can NEVER be ruled out, no matter how "puppy dog tame" someone thinks their snake is.

Just remember this for future purchases, BOAS OF ANY KIND KICK ***! Haha

[Mikoh4792]

Originally Posted by Snakey-Jay

Really great news that your going to keep and carry on working with this guy. Hopefully you'll have a good future together. Bites are a part of keeping wild animals and can NEVER be ruled out, no matter how "puppy dog tame" someone thinks their snake is.

Just remember this for future purchases, BOAS OF ANY KIND KICK ***! Haha

+1

You can never go wrong with a boa

[KORBIN5895]

Originally Posted by KWenger

Hello everyone, and marvelfreak, I want to begin by saying there are no hard feelings whatsoever on my part. I appreciate your passion and fully understand why you were angry with me. All of you experienced, knowledgeable folks were doing your best to give my good, sound advice, and I was ignoring it. For that I owe ALL OF YOU an apology. So, this is what I have decided: I am NOT going to return my Dum to the breeder from whom I bought him. Please know I didn't really understand until you guys explained it, that my snake was malnourished and apparently not properly cared for by the breeder. It would be cruel to return him to that environment, so I wont do that. Ever. After carefully rereading all of your comments I have decided to keep my snake and do my very best to make him healthy, happy, and hopefully calm. I promise I will NOT compare him to a "puppy dog" or any other warm blooded animal. He's a snake. A reptile. He's never going to have the mannerisms of a cuddly, furry pet and I get that. My plan is to immediately begin feeding him larger rats....still not sure of the best size, but I'll figure it out......weekly until he puts on some weight. I'll then go to a two week feeding schedule. Any opinion as to what a good "goal weight" would be for him before I switch to feeding him every two weeks? I have a good digital scale I use with my other snakes and can easily weigh him. Right now he is 700 grams and will be three years old in September. You're right that I do love him.......and you've made me aware I was overdoing it by handling him so often. My mistake. I'm going to limit handling him to 2 or 3 times a week (with gloves for now) for 15 minutes or so, and hopefully increase from there after a few months if he seems OK with it. Until I'm confident I can trust him to not bite unexpectedly, I will not let any of the kids near him. Easy enough to do, and prudent I think. I'm going to incorporate all of your sage advice into a new care plan for my Dumerils.....his name is Barney by the way.......and with patience I'm hopeful he will become a pet I and my family can enjoy for many years to come. I hope all of you have a great day, and thanks again.

Balls to you bro.

As far as prey size goes I would feed an 175gram rat

[Donnie]

Originally Posted by KWenger

Hello everyone, and marvelfreak, I want to begin by saying there are no hard feelings whatsoever on my part. I appreciate your passion and fully understand why you were angry with me. All of you experienced, knowledgeable folks were doing your best to give my good, sound advice, and I was ignoring it. For that I owe ALL OF YOU an apology. So, this is what I have decided: I am NOT going to return my Dum to the breeder from whom I bought him. Please know I didn't really understand until you guys explained it, that my snake was malnourished and apparently not properly cared for by the breeder. It would be cruel to return him to that environment, so I wont do that. Ever. After carefully rereading all of your comments I have decided to keep my snake and do my very best to make him healthy, happy, and hopefully calm. I promise I will NOT compare him to a "puppy dog" or any other warm blooded animal. He's a snake. A reptile. He's never going to have the mannerisms of a cuddly, furry pet and I get that. My plan is to immediately begin feeding him larger rats....still not sure of the best size, but I'll figure it out......weekly until he puts on some weight. I'll then go to a two week feeding schedule. Any opinion as to what a good "goal weight" would be for him before I switch to feeding him every two weeks? I have a good digital scale I use with my other snakes and can easily weigh him. Right now he is 700 grams and will be three years old in September. You're right that I do love him.......and you've made me aware I was overdoing it by handling him so often. My mistake. I'm going to limit handling him to 2 or 3 times a week (with gloves for now) for 15 minutes or so, and hopefully increase from there after a few months if he seems OK with it. Until I'm confident I can trust him to not bite unexpectedly, I will not let any of the kids near him. Easy enough to do, and prudent I think. I'm going to incorporate all of your sage advice into a new care plan for my Dumerils.....his name is Barney by the way.......and with patience I'm hopeful he will become a pet I and my family can enjoy for many years to come. I hope all of you have a great day, and thanks again.

great responce, well done for taking the advice on board. Good luck with your Dum

[MoreliAddict]

OP-

If you're afraid of the snake, keep in mind that you could always use a snake hook to avoid being bit while you pull the snake out of its enclosure.

[Terranaut]

Omg finally a person who takes the advice given without getting their poo poo in a knot. Kudos to you!!

[Concept9]

Originally Posted by MoreliAddict

OP-

If you're afraid of the snake, keep in mind that you could always use a snake hook to avoid being bit while you pull the snake out of its enclosure.

After a few dozen bits you don't get scared any longer and the snakes gets board of chewing on you.

[rocknhorse76]

I'm so glad to hear that you're keeping him! I know you'll take much better care of him than the breeder was and he'll end up being a great pet. Remember, we're all here to help each other out, so please ask for help anytime you're stumped!

[TeaNinja]

if i DON'T use a snake hook on my female dum to break the feeding response she WILL bite me 90% of the time. she usually bites at the hook in reaction and realizes it's not dinner time and i can grab her after that. as for the biting while handling, i've never had that happen personally. i've only been bitten twice in my life and they were both feeding responses.

[smy_749]

+1 to you mang

[Spirit_Scale]

Well, most of what I was going to say everyone else has said and I'd be just repeating.
So yes, +1 to feeding larger meals and keeping weekly feedings.
Also agree that it is a wild animal, hell any animal ever can bite you, and that this guy is probably hungry and stressed.

So get that under control and see how he does.

I too own a ball python, he's even more of a pet rock than most balls are---hell he doesn't even ball up or act afraid...he's just...there. A bit of a freak of nature in that regard and I can do just about anything (including touching his head and injections and medical care) without so much as a hiss.

HOWEVER, the day will probably come where I will get tagged.

Anyhoo, my addition to this might be a little hippie-trippy but how's your energy? Sometimes its just a person's 'way of being' when they handle the snake that sets the animal off.
I have taken in many animals who were known to be biters/be difficult...take your pick.

Yet magically, they stopped being 'difficult'.

My recent rescue boa is like this. This is an animal who (in shed, has abscess, mites etc) should be in pissy mood. I thought I was going to run into problems as when the guy showed him to me and opened the lid up and touched him Lazarus opened his mouth and hissed for all he was worth and threatened to bite the snot out of the guy. I asked if he was ok being handled and I got the nervous chuckle 'uhhh....'

I don't know if its me, or how I handle him...but Laz has never (in the four days since he's been home) threatened to bite or really hissed at me. I get what might be a little puff once in a while (hard to tell as he also has an RI) but that's it.

There's probably really subtle body language you missed before the strike, so it feels like to you its out of nowhere or without cause. Usually defensive bites are a strike and release, but sometimes if they feel the predator/attacker has 'got them' they will try and constrict it and fight back. The other possibility is a hunger strike.

Do you just reach in and get him? Where do you pick him up by? How fast do you come in and get him?

With both Ihysius (ball) and Lazarus (boa) I usually lift their hides, give them a minute or two to get their bearings and then slowly reach in to touch their lower bodies (not by their heads or coming in towards their face) and will touch them/pet them with a finger or two---when they loosen up and begin to move I gently lift them up starting with their tail/lower body and then reach in to support the rest of them.

[KWenger]

[QUOTE=Mikoh4792;858394]Nice decision. If you show us a picture of your dumerils boa next to a soda can or anything to compare his size to, maybe we can help you with prey size.

Here is a photo of him that I took today.....Saturday July 27.

[rocknhorse76]

Yeah, he's pretty underweight. He'll be much more chipper when he's fattened up a bit.

[rocknhorse76]

For reference, here's my male next to a soda can. Just took the photo a few minutes ago.