Alpha behavior

[Hollis_Steed]

I just watched something fascinating that I'm not sure I've seen discussed on the forum. In one of my enclosure I have two male and one female, melanistic vagrans. Usually I feed in a separate enclosure and I feed one at a time. This particular time I had some chopped up pinkies left over from feeding my two little Radix so i decided to put it on a small plate and give it the the vagrans. What I watched was without a doubt either a pecking order or at very least a display of dominance by the largest male. He hovered over the food and when the others came close he would put his face up against theirs and "intimidate" them away from the food! At one point he literally looked like he would bite them if they didn't back off. Which they always did. Finally the other male snuck a piece of food and the large male tried to take it out of his mouth! The little female was never even close enough to sneak a bite. The big male ended up eating the whole plate full while the others watched on! Fascinating! Has anyone else noticed this sort of behaviour?

[guidofatherof5]

Many times. My radix females will do the same thing but most of it is bluff. If the other snake ignores them and takes a piece the confrontation is over.
I did see one of my girls retaliate after getting food taken out of her mouth.
The stealer took the piece of worm and sprinted to the other end of the enclosure with the victim in hot pursuit.
I'm guessing the victim knew she wasn't getting the piece back so she bite the other snakes tail. Then she went back to the food dish and continued eating.
She was one angry radix.

[ConcinusMan]

I see that all the time. T.s. concinnus are notorious thieves and hoarders. Even if they aren't particularly hungry, they can't stand to see another snake getting food, and will chase each other down to steal it, even if there is a plate full right in front of them. Silly snakes.

If I feed them together from a dish of food I have to keep a close eye on them and break up fights. They can and sometimes will bite each others' heads and try to start swallowing:eek:

If you have a particularly quarrelsome group, it's best to feed them separately.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

this is why I tong feed.... stuff everyone's mouth at the same time and don't let the dominating snake near the others when they are eating! :)

I don't believe there's any sort of pecking order going on at all. It's really more of the fact that while all of them really love to eat, there are some, like my Olivia, that are much more outgoing and can be overbearing at times... the way she will do anything to get an extra piece of food, or how she constantly attempts to steal other snake's food... she is too much!

[ConcinusMan]

Tongs.. blah! use your fingers you wuss. :p (JK)

But seriously I do feed from my fingers sometimes when feeding night crawlers or nice long silversides. Seems to help to curb their "hand shyness" I don't get bit... much.:p

[Hollis_Steed]

good stuff! I love watching the behavior of my WC captives. Thanks for sharing your experiences:D

[Mommy2many]

My big snakes do that. My biggest girl "Stewie" is the alpha snake and she will strike down and steal food out of the mouths of the others.

[ConcinusMan]

I don't really have an alpha. They all try to steal each others' food. Nobody seems to be intimidated by any other but I do have one male that gets all riled up and takes off to hide when the girls come sniffing around his mouthful of food.

[mb90078]

I've got 2 3-month olds (very quickly growing). The larger one always dominates the area around the food tray when I feed that way. The smaller one will usually only come in for one piece, and then otherwise will wait until the bigger one loses interest. But that said, they have each attempted to steal food from each other, but the smaller one always acts more submissive (whether being the stealer or the victim) for the rest of that particular feeding time after the incident .

[ConcinusMan]

Check out this thread by Steve:

http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/husbandry/6429-eating-styles.html

[Hollis_Steed]

Check out this thread by Steve:

http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/husbandry/6429-eating-styles.html

Good Stuff! thanks for the link!