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SamGrace

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Hi guys, just need a little advice. I have a bredli, he's approximately 2 and a half maybe 3 years old. He's just a little cranky. He's bitten my girlfriend twice, and struck (but missed) at me twice as well. His temps, feeding, and enclosure size are all fine, I've done my research lol. Just wondering, is there any way to discipline a snake? Or maybe to calm him? I got told by a colleague to "roll him up in a ball" but I'm not sure about that. Can you guys offer some more advice?
 
There is no best way to "calm" down an older snake, was he always like that or only just started to get a bit aggressive now?
 
If all the snakes husbandry requirements are spot on and you have ruled out any underlying health issues my advice would be as follows.

1) keep the handling sessions short and build up, have you maybe not be handling the snake as often as you used to?.

2) Don't 'reward' the snake by not getting it out if it shows aggression, I have known snakes that have all to quickly learnt that if they show intimidatory behaviour they will be left in their enclosure.

3) Tempting as it is never put a snake back immediately into its enclosure if it bites as again it will readily learn that a bite gets it where it would sometimes prefer to be.

Good luck I am sure if you stick with it things will work out just fine.

Kindest regards

Endeavour
 
Thank you for your advice, very helpful! I can already see changes in his temperament. Just a question of curiosity, I have a colleague that suggested rolling them in a ball. Apparently it shows dominance. Just after your opinions :)
 
I have never heard of doing that, and can't really see how it would work as a discipline as (to my knowledge) snakes can't be "trained" the way cats and dogs can be. They aren't domestic animals so my first instinct would be no, don't roll your already aggressive Bredli in a ball lol.

Happy to be contradicted if anyone has any further thoughts/knows something I don't :)
 
I've never heard of rolling a snake into a ball for any reason, and I could only see it ending badly if done incorrectly (if there is a correct way to do it), possibly damaging the spine or worse.... I have found that ignoring the bad behaviour whilst rewarding the good works well for me for every species I've applied it to, from dogs to lace monitors to pythons... I find that giving them short handling sessions, and placing them near their favourite hide/branch etc or handling before a feed works well for the regular feeders such as a monitor etc)... Pythons seem to adjust quicker to the handling regime...
 
I have never heard of doing that, and can't really see how it would work as a discipline as (to my knowledge) snakes can't be "trained" the way cats and dogs can be. They aren't domestic animals so my first instinct would be no, don't roll your already aggressive Bredli in a ball lol.

Happy to be contradicted if anyone has any further thoughts/knows something I don't :)

I would have to agree with you Elisabeth and as already been mentioned the risk of injury (both to yourself and snake) would be fairly high. A 'technique' to avoid I think:shock:.

Kindest regards

Endeavour
 
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There is a video on youtube that recommends the rolling into a ball trick but it is an American video and it is dealing with ball pythons which judging from all I have seen on them feel comfortable rolled in a ball lol
 
There is a video on youtube that recommends the rolling into a ball trick but it is an American video and it is dealing with ball pythons which judging from all I have seen on them feel comfortable rolled in a ball lol

Instead of going into attack mode ball pythons generally curl up in a ball. Don't try and roll a bredli up, or you're going to have a very annoyed bredli that will likely bite you.
 
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Instead of going into attack mode ball pythons generally curl up in a ball. Don't try and roll a bredli up, or you're going to have a very annoyed bredli that will likely bite you.

Yeah I should of made it clearer, That is what I meant that it worked for balls but probably not recommended for any Australian Pythons
 
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Yeah I have seen that video on youtube too.
It is all about making the snake go in to flight mode instead of fight mode.

Seems silly to me now but at the time I did wonder about it.
 
Instead of going into attack mode ball pythons generally curl up in a ball. Don't try and roll a bredli up, or you're going to have a very annoyed bredli that will likely bite you.
Can you please try rolling your Bredli into a ball and video it for us all to see what happens?
 
Showing dominance only works on dominance-based animals. Animals that live in groups with a hierarchy. Snakes will not understand dominance in this way, you would just be seen as something it needs to defend itself from rather than something it should submit to.
 
Showing dominance only works on dominance-based animals...Snakes will not understand dominance in this way...

Spot on there IMO.
The vid on YouTube might work for a small juvenile (FWI- I would not do or recommend it) but what happens down the track, I bet 'balling' a large snake would bring more problems than it fixes.
 
Can you please try rolling your Bredli into a ball and video it for us all to see what happens?

You mean this one?
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...I have a colleague that suggested rolling them in a ball. Apparently it shows dominance. Just after your opinions :)

He must have seen that on YouTube for sure, no?

That 'trick' is used in the USA for ball pythons, hatchlings! - Cause they're small enough to fit in your hand.
(They're called ball pythons, 'cause they roll up in a ball when they're threatened)

I doubt you can make it work w/ a 3yo Bredli thought!


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What size rats are you feeding and how frequently?
 
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