Friendly reminder why you should always avoid being bitten!

It happens, and we can’t always avoid it, but do your best. Imagine the human equivalent to this photo. It wouldn’t be pleasant! Broken teeth can be pretty dangerous to the animal as they often are forced up into the gums leading to infections.

This was a feeding response from a ball python that I wasn’t being diligent enough with while spot cleaning.

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Ouch. Ive heard of venomous snakes shedding their fangs but never really put much thought into snake dental care (outside of mouthrot)

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Their mouths are actually pretty fragile. My first boa hit the glass and drove several teeth up into his gums as well as fracturing part of his face. Even with surgery it was an issue on and off his whole life. It was never able to be fully resolved and eventually led to having to euthanize him.

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As much as I love my snakes and don’t fear them, it’s really hard to fight that primal instinct that tells you to rip your hand back from a striking snake! I’m always worried about pulling teeth out during a bite.

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I don’t know if you can ever completely stop that reaction lol. You do your best but it’s one of those automatic self preservation responses that you do before you think.

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I agree with your response! Not a care for yourself but worried about your snake!! I always get concerned when my retics blast the front of the cage for seemingly no reason!

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To this I would say, you must not have been bitten badly enough. When you have an adult blood python, boa, retic, etc hanging their full body weight on their teeth then you can talk to me about never recoiling from a bite. It’s easy to say you won’t recoil from a bite when you have only small snakes. When you have a 9-10’ retic wrapped on your arm it’s a completely different story. Even a 2500-3500g ball python hanging on is a serious bite. It’s nothing like a baby carpet or a little sand boa.

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No I just sound like that all the time, no hard feelings.

Being bitten isn’t a badge of honor for me. Obviously nothing in text has full context so I understand if it was meant to be a joke. I work some big aggressive snakes and I keep venomous so I take being bitten (by anything beyond hatchlings) seriously. It would be disingenuous to suggest that all it takes to get over recoiling from a bite is being bitten more though considering the types of animals a lot of us work with.

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If you accidentally insult somebody, the appology comes off as moot if you insult them immediately after it.

Your intention was misunderstood, and could have easily been resolved by your first sentence, the rest of the paragraph was you being offended they inplied you only had small snakes and that it made you somehow inferior.

Please remember, there are people from all over, and all walks of life here. Bickering with pettiness only leads to drama that is best left on facebook. I know its human nature to want to retaliate, but sometimes its just easier to say “my bad, that wasnt my intent”. Its much more genuine and keeps drama to a minimum :slight_smile:

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I genuinely apologize to everyone for lashing out, i was slightly intoxicated last night and let my emotions get the better of me due to an precived atack. I fully agree with the OP about the danger to the animals due to forcefully pulling away from a bite. I pride myself on being able to “read” my animals and most reptiles in general and am willing to take bites from high strung juveniles in an attempt for a calmer more socilizied animal. Again my apologies and hopefully no hard feelings.
-Robert

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Water under the bridge! Hope you had a good time last night haha! Booze can get the better of everyone at times.

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