New pics of my girls

[whitehorse]

[pablo111]

I want oooooone

[YoungBuck]

You must have some excellent tempered bloods...or your little girl must be one heck of a snake handler/tamer

[whitehorse]

Originally posted by YoungBuck
You must have some excellent tempered bloods...or your little girl must be one heck of a snake handler/tamer

Thanks. Actually, I'd say the answer is neither. My blood is fairly well-tempered, but I'm not sure I would qualify her temper as "excellent." My girl has limited experience with snakes, this blood is the first one she has ever handled. (She's now begging me for more bloods, chondros and burms...- so far she's handled bloods and ball pythons, and has seen me handle large burms and boas.)

I like to call it "education." Bloods do have a bad reputation, worse than they deserve. They are fascinating and intelligent snakes (intelligent for a snake, of course). "Education" here also means to learn to read the behaviour of your snake, and how to handle it properly. There are a few rules here, such as fully supporting the weight of your blood, handling it carefully etc. Note from the pic that there is no attempt to control the head, this but puts the snake on the defensive. Handling reptiles is a matter of trust; not only must the blood be allowed to learn to trust you, you must also learn to trust your blood (note that we do not wear gloves, I only wear some when feeding her, and I'm not even sure I really need them then, just that I don't want to touch that rat...) Most animals are aware of the human fear chemicals. Confidence in handling is a must if your blood is to feel secure.

I'm also teaching my daughter how to read the behaviour of the animals we handle. With a blood, we will for example look for a flattened body (trying to appear bigger, therefore more threatening), s-curve at the neck (striking position as opposed to an "s" at rest, let's not be paranoid), puffing of air etc. She now knows that tongue-flicking is really smelling, not agression (many people don't). I of course choose when the blood will or will not be handled; just before or after feeding, when the blood is in a bad mood etc. In my experience, bloods are fine once you hold them. I can pick her most of the time, only when I've let her loose and she's found a tight spot does she tend to be agressive. My daughter knows not to attempt to take her then. When I take her at such moments, she often will strike at me, but I've never been bitten by her, not so far anyway...Once I picked her, she usually behaves well.

All that said, I would say that one should be sure he/she knows what he's doing before letting four-year-olds handle bloods...

[whitehorse]

I forgot to say: my blood is a W.C., and was aggressive when I bought her. It was but a question of time, patience and yes, education!

[YoungBuck]

I've always wanted a blood but housing it would be a problem as I want it to have adequate room. I've been reading up on how to make a melamine enclosure and I might give it a go this summer. Once again...beautifal snake~!!

[whitehorse]

Cool. Bloods are great snakes to own. I also want to build my own enclosures in the future, will have to do do some reading on that soon though...

[CHRISANDBOIDS14]

Shes looking good!

Its great to see such a young child interested in these snakes! I've got a little kids that have come over to my house with their parents(colleages of my parents), and none of them are scared of snakes. Its great to see.

Yes, definetly understandable about educating yourself and your daughter on the behaviors they exhibit. I dont really pay attention to specific things anymore with my snakes.....you just open the cage and you can normally tell right away whether or not they will let you handle them. Im sure most people feel that with their snakes, just takes a little time.

Thanks for sharing the pics!

C.

[CHRISANDBOIDS14]

O also, bloods dont need THAT much room IMO. They are fairly "lazy" in the wild, and do not move much. My biggest blood at the time is just under 6ft, and 17lbs. She has lots of space in her 6ftx2.5ft cage. The cage was originally made for breeding 1.2 bloods, but since 1 passed, there are only 1.1 in it at the most at a time and there is still good space.

Our cage is melamine. It was the first one we built, and not much planning or time/patience was put into it, its still a pretty nice cage. I'll try to get a pic up of it and the stand.

C.

[whitehorse]

Originally posted by CHRISANDBOIDS14
Shes looking good!

Its great to see such a young child interested in these snakes! I've got a little kids that have come over to my house with their parents(colleages of my parents), and none of them are scared of snakes. Its great to see.

Yes, definetly understandable about educating yourself and your daughter on the behaviors they exhibit. I dont really pay attention to specific things anymore with my snakes.....you just open the cage and you can normally tell right away whether or not they will let you handle them. Im sure most people feel that with their snakes, just takes a little time.

Thanks for sharing the pics!

C.

Having handled various snakes for years, I know what you mean. My daughter handled one for the first time in January (yep, the blood) and she's still learning to read snake's behaviour. I take her to a friend's boid shop regularly so that she can see and handle different snakes. She's still a wee reluctant to handle other snakes than bloods but she handled two royal pythons last time. She wanted to touch a burmese but kept a little distance when we got it out...I believe that fear is reduced and love & respect enhanced by knowledge and experience. I own a small Montessori preschool, and on last Monday I had two parents handle my blood with their child. The mothers were both nervous but seemed to enjoy the experience.

[Slipknot]

Cool! You have a wonderful snake and a beautiful daughter.

[whitehorse]

Thank you!