How do I stop stress?

[schizmz]

Well i was a terrible kid and.. OH!..you mean the snakes..hehe mmmm well my diamonds were never snappy..but the jungles were.. and with work it was about 10-12mnths they seemed to settle..one can still be a bit moody but you get that with jungles .

 

[J-A-X]

Well i was a terrible kid and.. OH!..you mean the snakes..hehe mmmm well my diamonds were never snappy..but the jungles were.. and with work it was about 10-12mnths they seemed to settle..one can still be a bit moody but you get that with jungles .

:lol: Yeah i probably could have worded that a bit better huh !... just nice to have some sort of guide, moody is one thing, they are allowed their bad moods once in a while, 24/7 can be a little tiring........

 

[JAS101]

with my male coastal [ i got him in aug 09- at that time he was only a couple of months old] he was a tagger , from memory in a 2 min hold session i got tagged 15+ times .
so i let him be fore a week or 2 then try again , the tagging rate dropped over time . i havnt been tagged by him for 3-4 months now .


having said that my male small spotted i brought as a hatchling [ oct 09] he hasnt stopped tagging yet , but my female small spotted was like that . and now she has settled down a lot .,i guess it just takes longer with some then others.

 

[Snake_Whisperer]

Yes, he certainly sounds stressed. He has told you in the only way he can that it is you who are stressing him. Handling him will only compound the problem at this point as he is obviously terrified of you. Leave him be, give him some nice, tight fitting hides, and keep him well fed. With a bit of luck, he should calm down on his own.

 

[FAY]

They will settle down when they realise that they are safe from harm.Just takes a while. Reptiles don't do anything in a hurry...you have to be patient.
The fact that he is eating...doesn't sound like stress.
I would put him in a very quiet room just the same. And I would just leave it be apart from cleaning and feeding.

 

[moosenoose]

can anyone remember roughly what age they were when they started to calm down a bit,.....?

I think mine was almost 12months of age before he finally realized I wasn't going to eat him :lol: ...I nicknamed him "the typewriter" because if you've ever seen those ink hammers (from a typewriter) hit a piece of paper at the hands of a competant typist....well, you get the idea (I'm showing my age a little using that analogy :lol

 

[wranga]

30-40lt click clack is a very big area for a small snake. try reducing the size of the click clack. put your snake away somewhere quiet and leave it alone for a week or more. hopefully this will help it settle down. also try using a hook to remove it from the click clack so it dosent have you huge hand comming at it. i find in some cases that hooking a snake from its home is less stressing than trying to grab hold of it. but you may just have a darwin like mine that just dosent want to be handled no matter what you try. good luck

 

[Jungletrans]

l have bred and raised lots of Darwins , most are like that . The trade off is they are great feeders which means they grow fast and as they calm down with size this is a good thing . lt is hard to over feed a hatchie so pump it in for a while . Maybey use gloves till you get used to the striking , they can sense fear , then loose the gloves when you both relax , good luck .

 

[adfel]

I want to do everything possible to give Kiba (young Darwin) a stress-free environment, because he's a little psychopathic nutter.

He's in a click clack, I think it's 30-40lt but I have no idea, in my bedroom. I go in there a few times a day, I was hoping this would help him get used to vibrations and people walking around and stuff, but it seems to stress him out more.

I've nearly given up, I just can't handle him. I don't know why, it doesn't usually hurt when he bites, although he draws blood every time and bites like 15-50 times every time I get him out. So that's put me off getting him out, I haven't handled him in nearly two weeks and it's starting to get harder to clean the cage and feed him.

Don't just tell me to man up, believe me, if I could, I would. I just want to be able to handle him without being scared crapless.

Any special tips?

Hey Naledge
How old is your darwin? We have one who is almost 5 months old and he was very stressed and a bit nippy to start with. We had to put him in a quite room for two weeks and basically leave him alone until he had time to settle down. We kept him in his click clack container until about 2 weeks ago when he had settled enough to be in a glass front enclosure. He had a thermometer and thermostat sticking out of the top of his clickclack (a small one40cm long by 30cm wide, from target) and sat him half under a ceramic heat lamp in a larger enclosure which kept him at a constant 31-32 degrees. We found that leaving him for 2 weeks without feeding or handling him made sure he had time to settle. He's still a bit jumpy and sometimes nippy now but that goes with the territory of having a baby. If you give him some time in a quiet room if you can and leave him for a couple of weeks only going near him to check his water then you might find he will settle down a bit. Although I have heard that Darwin's can be quite bitey while they are young. What ever you do don't stop handling altogether give him that two weeks and then get him out for a minute everyday and once he is good with that increase it to two mins and so on holding him until he lets u know he's had enough.... he needs to get used to someone handling him and when this is the case he will bite less and less.... My little guy still bites every now and then but not on a regular basis. He bit last night for the first time in 2 or 3 weeks so he is getting better but we hold him everyday until he gets grumpy and wants to away.

I hope you have some luck with your darwin and he stops biting soon....

 

[Vincey]

first thing you have to note... is snakes are not pets...
and you cant train them to become more placid...
the best you can do is get them used to you...
but by trying to handle the snake while it clearly doesnt want it ... isnt the way to get around it...
move the snake somewhere more quite... they dont like vibrations...
put a towel over the tank, it doesnt need too much light when its a hatchling... and when it starts to calm a little take the towel off...
other then that... leave it alone apart from feeding and cleaning...
and as far as biting goes... even though you dont want to hear it...
snakes bite, its part of the deal, so either you get used to the idea, dont touch it, or find someone else who is willing to look after it...

People like you make other people not want to enter this hobby.
Doesn't matter if it's true or not, there are other ways to put it.

As for my input on the real matter, same thing happened with my stimmie recently, gloves work a charm and now hes a great handler.

 

[python_dan89]

what kind of gloves being used to hold?

 

[Vincey]

Pretty much any gloves you feel comfortable in, obviously not latex.
Gardening gloves are perfect, just make sure they are bought-new. NEver know what nasty chemicals or dirty things you've trudged in your garden with.

 

[FAY]

Pretty much any gloves you feel comfortable in, obviously not latex.
Gardening gloves are perfect, just make sure they are bought-new. NEver know what nasty chemicals or dirty things you've trudged in your garden with.

Also, make sure that you use gloves that you are able to feel the snake, otherwise you may hold it too hard and are not aware that you are doing it.

 

[JAS101]

i would go to a saftey shop and grab a pair of ninja gloves [ jokes aside] they are a cloth and rubber glove . they are lighter then rigger gloves and i think they would do the trick.

 

[schizmz]

just use old socks m8..

 

[J-A-X]

just use old socks m8..

That is a seriously great suggestion....

I would suggest washed ones, :lol: mine would make the poor things pass out......... but at least then they wouldn't bite.....