Garter snake with a bad attitude!!

[snakebite]

Hello everybody!! I recently aquired a Eastern Garter snake. It has a very bad temper, too. to get to the point, is there anything i can do to get it to stop biting me? If I even open the cage to feed it "pop" I'm bleeding everywhere. It bloats when it see's me and strikes when it seees me. What can I do??? My temps are usaully in the high 70's. and the humidity is 50% he has a big water dish. 2 inches of reptile bark(i feed him out of cage). He eats salamanders well(loves to be hand fed but still bites and i end up holding his neck). he has a big hide rock and in a cage abou 6 or 7 inches longer than him.

[Bart]

Buy tongs or tweezers and feed him/her with them. Also, how old is he/she?

[kibakiba]

Give it time.

Stop feeding salamanders, also. They can carry a lot of parasites. Try to get it to eat night crawlers and pinkies or safe feeder fish.

Also, don't handle the snake. Give him time to get used to his tank, hand feeding is a good step, but when you keep picking him up, it's a step back and he won't be enjoying himself as much.

[Kantar]

just give it time. It took about a month for my little albino checkered to calm down, it lived in a racking system for the first ear of her life.

Give the little one lots of interaction through the glass, try to make the little one come to you by wiggling your finger and reward with a nightcrawler piece

[RedSidedSPR]

First, let him get settled. A big monster just took him from his home and stuck him in a "box".

Than it's just a matter of making him trust you...

EDIT: RIGHT! Like Chantel said, sorry. And yes salamanders, and anything else from the wild (except worms) is bad.

[snakebite]

ok i will stop the salamanders. he has had a week to settle inalso. i got him out for the first time with no bloating, head flattening or strikes!! he/she is adult. thanks for the quick reptiles everyone!

[RedSidedSPR]

Also you can scent the other foods with salamanders so he'll smell it as food.

Glad you got him out without dying.:p

[katach]

Other than feeding I would leave him alone for a while. Do you have a picture of him and your set-up? Maybe there is something in your set-up you could switch to make him more comfortable. You could try just getting down to his level outside the cage a few times a day, without touching or bothering him. He could get used to seeing you and calm down a little.

[guidofatherof5]

For some snakes you have to take baby steps.
Like Kat said.
Then there are others that calm down within moments of being caught/held.

[d_virginiana]

Sometimes it can take a month or two for them to really settle in and feel comfortable. Like others suggested, try tweezers or tong feeding. If you have to hold your snake by the neck to keep from biting when you feed him then it's probably pretty stressful for him. Is there any reason you remove him from his enclosure to feed him? Nothing's wrong with that, but it's always seemed to me that feeding in the enclosures works better for snakes that are snippy or nervous, especially if they don't have tankmates.

[snakebite]

Thanks for the replies everybody..... I got night crawlers. When he was out and about, I grabbed a worm and stuck it near his nose. He opened his mouth slowly and nervously and took it out of my hand. Handling him is better and he has not struck at me. I named him maimer as he maimed a salamander that was in his way.

[RedSidedSPR]

Awesome!