Considering Getting a Snake for Autistic Sister

[-Adam-]

I was considering feeding outside of the viv in a tub until I came across many people saying it isn't necessary. Probably the nail in the coffin for me were some youtube video's (Snakediscovery being a major one) that showed the different 'modes' that snakes have and how tell if a snake is in feeding mode and how to get a snake out of feeding mode if you want to handle it.

From this I understand that snakes primarily strike for 2 reasons. Defense and Feeding. From what I observed, feeding a snake outside of an enclosure only reduces the 'feeding' risk when opening the doors - but understanding snake behaviour and how to tell the snake it isn't feeding time (plus how to handle a defensive snake) seemed to be a more effective means of not getting bitten than feeding out of an enclosure.

Then I see your post @Chris1 . So I'm just wondering - when your snakes are wanting to strike when you open the doors - is it just a matter of handling them a certain way (such as rubbing their back with a snake hook) to get them out of feeding mode so you can handle them safely - and you just wish you continued to feed outside so you didn't have to do this - or do your problems go beyond that?

Also - given that this post is 6 months old, I was wondering if @GoldenGaytime404 had an update of what decision they decided to go with?

 

[Herpetology]

In my whooping 6 years , I’ve only ever been on the end of a feedbite once.... because I had a rat in the room go figure, and Was trying to move stuff out of the way to find the snake only to find a Snake lungs out at me as I lifted his hide

 

[Sdaji]

Lol, I used to feed outside of the enclosures, I would line up a row of chairs on the back lawn, put a snake on each chair, then offer them rats, and all of my snakes were fine being approached in their enclosures.
Then the dogs arrived and it became to difficult to get them all out for feeding. Now only my first snake which was handled to death as a youngster can still be approached in his enclosure, the other 16 are ready to grab me the second their doors are opened. I do wish I had kept up the feeding outside of the enclosure, but it’s too late now!!

Virtually all my snakes have always been fed in their enclosures. The overwhelming majority of them can be pickup up without any fuss and don't try to bite. I do notice that snakes in some collections are all desperately trying to attack and kill anyone who opens the enclosure and snakes in other collections are like mine. I've had snakes from my collection go to collections where all the others try to attack anyone who opens the tub, and they quickly become like the others. If a snake like that comes to me it quickly starts behaving like my snakes do. Obviously different people with different methods cause snakes to have different behaviours, but for whatever reason, what I do causes them not to want to bite a person which opens their enclosure up. I find snakes in racks with sliding tubs are particularly prone to wanting to kill anyone opening them up.

As for the 'it's too late now', I've seen snakes change back and forth quite quickly depending on a change in regime. I don't know how you're feeding or dealing with them, but my own decades of experience with large numbers of snakes shows that it's not too late, and that feeding in a separate tub isn't necessary to have snakes which aren't keen to attack anyone who opens up their home.

I'm also sure that my snakes will be happy to feed in an external tub and that snakes routinely fed in an external tub will also happily feed in their enclosure without hesitation.