Steve's Snake Observations

[guidofatherof5]

Was there a bald joke/reference in there Emily?

[ProXimuS]

No no I promise!

[d_virginiana]

I always feel a little proud of my snakes when they prefer me over a new person holding them Especially if it's one of those people who insist that snakes can't recognize people. It's really funny when it's Houdini doing it... Harley can see the new person and just avoid them if she wants, but Houdini will put his head on them, do a couple tongue flicks and then do a blatant 180 if he doesn't know them.

[guidofatherof5]

As I walked past Shyblue's enclosure I didn't see any snakes out so I yelled into the enclosure "Shyblue". When I did 4 heads popped out of the hides. I yelled again and they reacted with quick head movement as if they were looking for food. I yelled a final time and they once again reacted to the sound with the same head movement.
I find this very interesting. Their hearing may be more acute then we realize.

[EasternGirl]

Last night I was feeding the babies and every snake in every enclosure in the room came out looking for food. Either they have an extremely strong sense of smell...or they have figured out how I act when I am feeding snakes and watch my motions and know it means food is around...how incredibly intelligent!

[Eight]

This is a great thread Steve. I've noticed a few of my snakes reacting to my voice, but I put it down to it being a little deeper and having a little more bass to it, but I'll be sure to pay more attention to noise now.

The main thing I've noticed is how my snakes react to someone's mood. If I let someone nervous of snakes handle them or get them out they react completely differently to when I or someone comfortable with them does the same. That is with the exception of one of my kings. He has an alpha male superiority complex, which leads to a Mexican stand off once a week or so. After that he's a soft puppy snake

[guidofatherof5]

I observed some interesting behavior from the W/C female that produced the B/W radixes. I separated her out to breed with the W/C albino male and her attitude really changed. She went from calm and relaxed to scared and jumpy. Even striking at me. This behavior continued until I put her back in with her original group of females. Within an hour of putting her back she returned to her calm and relaxed ways. I know there are many other variables in this situation but it is interesting how calm she is with her own group of buddies.

[guidofatherof5]

Last Sunday ChareiHeals (Kelsey) visited the Ranch. As I showed her and husband (Matt) around the snake room I opened the adult male T.radix enclosure because my largest male was out begging.
I was showing Kelsey what a large male he was when she reached out to touch him. He immediately tried to bite her. She reached from behind his head so he didn't see it coming. I think this is important to the situation because I was already holding him with both hands.
I believe he didn't recognize her touch and reacted to that. He was comfortable with me as I've held him hundreds of times before but this was a strange touch from someone he didn't know.
Not very scientific but interesting anyway.

[Sherrie]

Our's definitely doesn't like me. Lol. I am a bit nervous with him. I try not to be, but I've never been a snake person (before we discovered garters, anyway) and I'm definitely better than I was, but still need to work on it. My son is great with him and you can just see how relaxed Morpheus is with my son, but the second I touch him, he tenses up and trys to get away. I am the one who feeds him though, so he does poke his head out when I come around. Lol.

[Varanus]

Its a pretty basic observation but is still something that has stuck out to me. Namely until I got my checkereds I never thought about snakes having to do anything to stay clean, they just seemed to always be naturally clean animals.

Then I noticed after eating a worm mine will often wipe their mouth off on the plastic tub they are fed in. Pretty neat in how well it works, since I have to wash my hands to get worm slime off effectively, course I don't have scales.