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.
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