Hey guys, I thought I would ask this question before I drop off for bed. Magenta has been lunging at pretty much everything that moves for the past few weeks.
She's always been kind of hissy and reluctant when I need to take her out of the enclosure, but this is straight lunging whenever something comes near her enclosure.
Case in point:
- I have a recliner a bit past her enclosure that I sit in a lot and I walk past it to get to it, and sometimes she'll lung when I walk by.
- She's lunged at my dad when he goes to turn off the light behind the recliner.
- She just now lunged at my cat when she jumped by her enclosure, which is what prompted me to ask this, but she just ate 30 minutes ago so I guess she's still in "feeding mode".
- It's a strong lung and there's always a loud thump when she hits the plastic, I'm kind of concerned about her hurting herself.
- When I open the top of the enclosure to give her water or whatever, I have a sterilite bin, she will lung at me and then immediately start flicking her tongue erratically and moving her head to stare at me intently, like she's threatened or waiting for something.
I know there's an ongoing debate about it, but I DO feed her in the enclosure. I'm definitely not blaming it on that, but I do tong feed her and I'm kind of worrying about her associating my hand with food, although when she lunges she does it pretty much as soon as I unlatch the top. Should I start just dropping it in her enclosure and walking away? Can a snake even associate me opening the top of her bin with being fed? Or is this some kind of defensive thing?
She has a VERY strong feeding response and she lunges lightning quick and squeezes the prey (I feed f/t) for a while before she eats it.
I'm guessing I should buy a snake hook and start with that? I do not handle her often, probably once every 2 weeks. Should I be handling her more...?
Thanks!
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