Adult female CA I received a week back. Easily my most defensive boa. She doesn’t seem enclosure aggressive. Never strikes at the hook. Has never struck my hand or arm (though I’ve never presented them in front of her face.) I held her fine in the living room she just eventually chilled on my arm. She’s not exceptionally wily.
However, anytime my face is within 18 inches she goes for the kill. Even after having her out for a bit.
Her pupils are huge looks like a dang BEA. They react to light fine though. Her tongue often flicks slowly so it does appear she’s in a heightened sense of awareness.
Not sure what my question is. Just any insight into likelihood she’ll chill out. I do know she was fed live at least for a portion of her life. And perhaps her whole life. Not sure how often she was handled, if at all.
I wonder if she can eventually calm down. The pupil thing is freaking me out but like I said they react fine to light so I don’t think it’s neurological. And she’s not uncontrollably wild. Just very wary and likes to strike at my face and the big pupils .
This remind me of my ATB… he is always tracking my face when I hold him no matter what position he’s in. I’ve had him for years and he’s still very wary and will bite anything that is warm, I’ve tried socializing him and doing regular handlings but at this point I find they stress him out too much…
I’m more than confident that snakes can recognize faces in some sort of way, or at least aspects of a face like eyes or the mouth, heck long hair could probably be a candidate too since it makes the head look bigger and all of that it kicks in their instinctive defensive drive to bite the area that also bites, that being their only defense.
I have no insight to the pupil thing other than it may be a sign of fear, stress or agitation… which lines up with how you describe her behavior.
You have not had her for very long at all. A week isn’t even really enough time for snakes to fully settle in to eat comfortably, let alone being handled often.
It can sometimes take months to years to socialize an adult snake that has had very little to no human interaction, and socializing progress is not linear. There is a very good chance she was not held a lot, and being fed live doesn’t help in some cases. I’m not saying its impossible to get to a point where she is minimally stressed while handling though, it will just take some work.
What is her enclosure setup like? Not having an adequate setup or parameters can also cause stress that results in defensiveness.
I’d reccomend keeping handling to a minimum for about a month outside of necessity, to really let her adjust to being in a new place before socializing begins.
This can be a huge factor in defensiveness. Even with the parameters being great, some snakes can be stressed by the type of enclosure. Not saying this is definitely the reason for yours since she sounds calm in the enclosure… But for anyone who may stumble across this later.
At one week I would still be focused on letting her settle in. She hasn’t had much time to adjust yet. Give her some time. Hopefully she warms up and settles in well for you soon.
Well I have figured out the pupil thing. Lol. She has quite dark horizontal color going through the iris so anytime the pupil open more than a slit it looks huge.
She hasn’t struck or hissed again. I’m very careful to keep my face away from striking range when she’s looking at me. I give her extra time to adjust to knowing she’s [been picked up by a human] before I get comfortable with her.