Advice.....Meanest B***h Ever!

Dragons & Balls · 07-20-04, 12:12 PM

I just aquired a 25-30lb female blood who is Gorgeous. The only problem is she is the MEANEST snake Ever. If u go anywhere near her,U are lunch. I tried taking her out with gloves and she attacked the gloves! I am wondering how I am going to clean this B***h out. Any advise would be good.

Gino

latazyo · 07-20-04, 12:42 PM

hooks

CHRISANDBOIDS14 · 07-20-04, 01:42 PM

Good luck with her gino! I woudl sudgest taking a solt but rigid stick/pole/something like that, and controling the frontal part of the body. Approach from behind, and grab just behind the head, then grab as far down the body as you can where you can still put your hand around her. Get someone else to hold the rest of her body and put her into a container that you can just tilt over and she can crawl back into the cage.

C.

Linds · 07-20-04, 01:44 PM

Don't use gloves. They may help protect you, but they can harm the snake. A good snake hook is a vital part of anyone's toolkit when dealing with large boids, regardless of temperament. Learn to use one, and if you wish, you can also use sheilding techniques as well to prevent strikes.

KLG · 07-20-04, 01:51 PM

DON'T grab her behind the head. Use a hook & control the front part of her body with that, and the rear part of her body with your other hand. It will take some practice & you may bleed a little, but in the long run building the snake's trust in you will be worth it. Grabbing a snake behind the head immediately puts it on the defensive & makes it feel threatened, so the next response from the animal will be a negative one.

K

Invictus · 07-20-04, 04:24 PM

I have yet to encounter any problems using SOFT leather gloves, as opposed to using the hardness of your knuckle or the back of your hand. Come on Linds, are you telling me that the taiwan beauty who embedded a tooth in my knuckle was in less pain than the countless snakes who have nailed my gardening gloves with no ill effects? Soft material is way less harmful than a knuckle. I encourage the use of gloves with the mean ones, especailly because, as Unky Roy so brilliantly put it in another thread a long time ago, and this has stuck in my mind.. "It prevents accidental snake launchings across rooms."

But I agree 100% with Kara on hook handling the business end, and get someone to help you with the heavy end. Another thing I recommend is getting a cage you can keep on the ground and reach through the top to gain access to the snake. You'll find this much easier than trying to pull a nasty snake horizintally out the front of a cage.

CHRISANDBOIDS14 · 07-20-04, 04:42 PM

I know it may be bad to grab a snake behind the head. But sometimes it must be done. If she is that agressive, all she has to do is lift her head out of the hook and strike. JMO.

C.

Edit: I also agree with what Ken said about the gloves and Roy's "snake launching prevention system" lol.

KLG · 07-20-04, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by CHRISANDBOIDS14
I know it may be bad to grab a snake behind the head. But sometimes it must be done. If she is that agressive, all she has to do is lift her head out of the hook and strike. JMO.

Right...I'm aware of that. It's worth it, however, to some people to at least TRY to establish some rapport with a snake than make it lose all trust in someone by throttling it every time the animal must be handled. I guess I fail to see why folks must bite off more than they can chew sometimes.

You'd be amazed how many pissed-off bloods can be handled fairly easily with a hook & a hand once someone is willing to invest some time & a little patience into learning a smooth process.

Just my $.02

K

Scales Zoo · 07-20-04, 04:53 PM

And holding on to a blood python by the head can be dangerous for the snake. Such a heavy bodied snake, if it starts to thrash, can kill itself If you are still holding onto the head / neck area.

Ryan

CHRISANDBOIDS14 · 07-20-04, 11:02 PM

I see your points, and agree. Thank-you for elaborating. It is definetly possible(with patience) to work with hook. As I said, if you are holding the head and upper body, get someone else to hold the rest. Its not gonna wrap around two people(unless they are little kids or something). I would(if I had a hook but dont and prefer to use my bare hands), use a hook, or at least give it a shot. I would probably try getting it into a pillowcase, then handling or stroking the snake through the pillowcase. I know that would possibly be risky as you cant see the head of the animal, and it might stress cause it cant see what is happening, but I'm not too sure as to how it would react. Any ideas? It's just a sugestion, and I have never tried it.

C.

Dragons & Balls · 07-21-04, 09:46 AM

Thanks for the advice and keep it coming....

Gino

Linds · 07-21-04, 10:15 AM

Well I'd like to see anyone throw a blood across the room by jerking away

Regardless, I cannot agree that having a snake stuck in my cloth gardening gloves is better than taking a bite. True sometimes they will lose their teeth, but they lose them throughout their life anyways, the chance of prematurely knocking one out or doing damage to their jaws are greatly reduced when not using gloves. IMHO if you are so afraid of getting bitten by the animal you need to wear gloves, you aren't ready to be working with them yet. There are many other safer alternatives to handling aggressive snakes.

Invictus · 07-21-04, 10:33 AM

Again, you're telling me that soft gloves have more of a chance of damaging their jaw than a hard knuckle or a bone. LOL.. ok. I'll just drop this one now, pending one more statement....

I'm 90% sure that the tooth that got embedded in my knuckle WAS prematurely knocked out, and the boa that bit me right on the back the hand at the pet store spent the rest of the night realigning his jaw. My gloves have taken bites from everything ranging from king snakes to adult boas and papuan pythons, and not one of them has gotten a tooth stuck. So I'm afraid the statistics do NOT favor your opinion on this one Linds.

marisa · 07-21-04, 10:41 AM

I think she is saying soft gloves cause teeth to get caught BECAUSE they are soft. Which is true in my experience as well, although I do not keep bloods.....both our GTP and the ATB I have had have bitten gloves and gotten partially stuck on the glove. We just don't bother with them anymore. That's my tiny experience with gloves anyways.

Maybe that's what she meant?

Marisa

Linds · 07-21-04, 10:55 AM

Cotton gardening gloves are the most commonly used gloves when it comes to snake handling and yes, they DO snag teeth. The way the threads are woven together, albeit soft, poses a threat of snagging teeth, and when you jerk away with a snake stuck in your glove, it can do damage. How would you feel being hurled around by your tooth? Leather gloves are different as they are the same general material as skin, which is why yours haven't yanked out any teeth. If you read my post, you would see that I never say teeth will never be knocked out prematurely, just that there are many things that can be done to reduce this. However, 90% of the time people use cloth gloves, and it's an age old story of snakes getting stuck in them.