Many of you have been following my post about Tang, the radix that needed sutures. I was having trouble calming him down. He was in an enclosure by himself. I decided to try a little experiment. I put a calm, hand feeding smaller male in with him. I thought that he may trust me more if another snake showed him it was okay to approach me and take food.
The first day I didn't see any difference. His new friend would come out and cruise around, at times begging for food. On the second day I noticed that while the new male was out of the hide, Tang had his head out. Later that night I saw him out with his buddy. They were cruising the tank. Today, Tang was out on his own and even looked at me with that "I'm hungry" face. He came and took two crawlers from me.
This evening I was feeding pinkies to the group who live next door. I noticed Tang watching them as they ate their pinkies. He even pressed his nose against the glass to watch. I thought this would be a good time to try pinkies. He has never eaten a pinky for me, scented or unscented. He has always turned them down.
This time when I offered pinkies from across the tank, he came to me and took the first and second without hestitation.
I know this wasn't even close to anything scientific but he sure seemed to calm down when he had a friend in with him.