Ball Python help!

[smokyprogg]

After reading a lot of posts on forums for help, I decided I might as well make an account and post here myself. So, hello!

I got my ball python in april of 2014, so I've had her for ~6 months right now. I bought her from the pet store I was working at because I loved handling her with customers, so I was pretty excited and generally calm about it at the time. The first time I got bit I was surprised, but I didn't lose my cool. After a couple weeks of handling her she seemed to get more comfortable with me and her ease of movement always got me nervous. This nervousness built up to where I was getting afraid of handling her, my heart rate would increase and I would be visibly shaking when she'd be on my arm (and it'd be worse when I would try to take her out of her cage).

There was a week where I messed up the feeding schedule and fed her late, and she was visibly hungry. She saw me go up to her cage and she stuck her head out of her hide and followed my movements. At this point, I was aware that if I try to handle her then she would definitely bite me. So, in order to ease some of my nervousness, I balled my hand into a fist and kept it tight, and stuck it into the far side of the cage. She did exactly what I expected her to do; move quickly to my hand and bite me (what I've heard people call tagging).

What I'm worried about is both times she's bitten me it's just been this "tagging". It's never been a full bite and grip. Does this mean that she's doing it out of defense?


The first time she bit me was when I was holding her with one hand and she lunged at my opposite hand. I've learned to not put my hands in front of her face or in a position where she could easily snap at me.

My question about this, however, if she's in my hands, is it possible for her to bite the hand that is holding her? I always try to keep my hands in a position where I can readjust myself if she extends her head out so I can place my other hand underneath her 'neck' area to support her and also to decrease the amount of distance between my hand and her head so she wouldn't be able to go into strike position and bite me.


Also, I recently bought a frozen rat and saw a bug on it. I thought it was a mite or something so I instantly got rid of it and decontaminated my snake's cage. I replaced the bedding and washed everything, but a couple of things inside of the aquarium I had to get rid of. This has left A LOT of room in the cage for my snake to move around in, and she spent the whole night climbing around and looking at stuff.

Am I right to assume that the extra space in her cage does not make her feel uncomfortable?