Strange Behaviour

[Nicole]

Hi All,

I've just seen some bizare behaviour and wanted to know if anyone could help me make sense of it.

BBBaby is a male yearling Coastal, fed all winter, due to be fed now.
Tiffany is a female yearling Diamond, cooled this winter, but warmed up now, ate last week and not due to be fed again yet.

We let Tiff out to roam around, she roamed in front of Baby's enclosure and started climbing around the ridge on the outside of the glass. Baby stared at her for a while and then leapt into action climbing up and around the enclosure, and finaly leapt to the ground (which really worries me, I don't want him to get hurt). On the ground he was very animated and moving super fast (for a python). We took Tiff away, Baby was still racing around on the floor of his enclosure. To see what would happen (under strict supervision) we got Baby out (no agression or anything displayed), and Mark held him while I held Tiff, we popped them together, absolutely no problems, no agressive behaviour, they crawled over each other for a bit, very calmly. We popped them on the floor together, they separated and went off in different directions.

I can't work out what Baby was worked up about, is he most likely to be scared and intimdated, or happy to see a potential playmate?

I wish he could talk...

What theories do you guys have?

 

[Stevethepom]

maybe tiff is a male too, and bbbaby wants to bash it,

same sorta thing my male did when he started fightin with me other male, but yours are only yearlings and i havent gotta clue if they do this

so i probably shoulda kept me mouth shut huh ...hmm

interested to see others views though

 

[Bendragon]

Nicole, it's probably the first time it's ever seen a snake before hehehe. He might be scared of them

 

[Nicole]

Not the first time they've met at all, but they haven't seen each other since Tiff was cooling all winter...

They should be too young to fight, and when we put them together, no bashing at all....

But keep the theories coming as I'm stumped...

 

[ReptileRascals]

I know they are only young but could it be possible that after the cooling period Tiffany had been able to release feremones that Baby could smell? Im not 100% sure if young snakes would be active as such but it might be a possibility.After all,breeding comes natural to them.Perhaps Tiffany instinctively knew to release feremones after cooling to attract males even though she might not know about copulation.I think if this was the case then Baby might also know what the smell meant and got all excited but then lost interest once placed with her as neither knew what to do about it.

 

[Nicole]

Thankyou John, that's a very thoughtful answer and sounds most plausible so far.
Looking forward to hearing more, or if anyone can point me to some reading that'd be great too.

 

[lutzd]

Maybe Babes reaction was in defence of his territory. When he saw the other snake he was concerned about invasion of his space. Poseidon sometimes takes a snap at me through the glass, but is tame as can be when I let him out.

Just a theory (read: guess).

 

[Magpie]

My thoughts were very similar to John's on this one.
Maybe after cooling, Tiff was releasing pheremones, or maybe bbbaby just knew that it was post winter breeding time. Maybe it was just that he ahdn't seen another snake for a while, but it sounds to me like he was checking her out in a carnal type of way. Once he was put with her, he realised that neither of them was up to the job so gave up.
My male water python showed very similar behaviour once I seperated him from the females. He was still keen as to get back in there, even though both were quite obviously gravid and would have had no interest in mating with him. He was placed back with one of them briefly and pretty much ignored her. In this matter, snakes seem a bit like young kids, they really really want something until they get it, then they go "oh, OK. I didn't really want it after all"