My sweet boy bit me ☠️

I can’t believe my boy bit me, i touched his body and i guess it startled him and maybe i fed him to recently :woman_shrugging: maybe i don’t interact with him as mucha as i should? Im still in shock that he struck me, i expected Orange Crush to strike but never him. I totally touched his back, im sure i did something wrong since i don’t know snake body language too well, i probably missed something.


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Aw, bummer. I can’t tell you why Snow did that, but when I’ve gotten tagged over the years, it’s generally been because I smelled like food. Sometimes I was actually handling a prey item, maybe involved in feeding or handling another animal. Once I had been eating (a bologna sandwich) and apparently my meal smelled yummy to the snake (should’ve known they hunt bologna in the wild).

There are plenty of other reasons why this can happen. Some are grouchy and/or easily startled when they’re in shed, which is tricky to see on light-colored morphs like your boy. Maybe he was asleep and you startled him (that lack of eyelids thing can be challenging to read). Most get grumpy if temps are running on the high side (me too, buddy, me too). I’ve even heard of some who object to a change in your body care routine, like a new soap or lotion or even a new laundry product. Makes sense, since animals identify others by smell. ( No clue why my totally genius dog lost her mind anytime a human wore a hat. Even hubby.)

Moral of the story: disinfect, try to figure out why, but if you can’t, maybe he just had a bad moment. Don’t fret unless it becomes a habit. He’s still way less dangerous than every kitten ever, right? And I love cats, too. :smile_cat:

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“should’ve known they hunt bologna in the wild” hahaha i think i had a ham sandwich plus he loves food never misses a meal. Tomorrow im doing a tub cleaning and substrate change. He just had a medium mouse not that long ago. He does get startled easy, heck one day i saw him startle himself :joy: im sure is normally sweet disposition was reaction to something i did. Im definitely going to listen to these advice. I already had one get mad at me and run away i definitely don’t need 2.

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Aww, she didn’t get mad at you and run away. She just explored too successfully.

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Sorry your boy bit you, but these things happen sometimes, even with normally calm and docile snakes. As @caryl said, it was probably something as simple as you startled him awake and/or smelled like food. Rosies have a pretty legendary feeding response, so even the residual smell of meat on your hands could have smelled yummy to him.

I’ve been bitten by both my snakes even though both are generally quite docile and not prone to biting. With my sand boa (Phoebe), it was a misplaced feeding response due to a bit of a rookie mistake on my part. Phoebe never takes her mouse off the tongs when I feed her, so I stupidly decided that meant I didn’t need to use the tongs at all, and I just put the mouse in her enclosure with my bare hands. I set the mouse down in her dish, and as I was pulling my hand back out of the enclosure, she tagged me. It was most likely triggered by the fact that she smelled the mouse and then saw the movement of my hand and sensed my body heat.

My blood python, Mina, managed to tag me in the very early days of our relationship. It was only the second or third time I’d handled her and she was acting a bit defensive, which made me a little anxious and my movements became sort of nervous and jerky. I tentatively reached down to grab her, and she struck at my hand and tagged me. But it was a nothing bite that didn’t even break the skin. She was a nervous tiny baby in a new environment with a new person, and my lack of confidence just put her more on edge. I’ve since learned that she reacts better when I use a snake hook to lift up a section of her body, then I can get my other hand under her and lift her out.

Point being, it happens. It doesn’t mean the snake is aggressive or the keeper is bad, there are a lot of potential variables, and sometimes bites happen. :person_shrugging:

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