Red tail Boa behaviour

Question
I have a red tail boa she is our first snake and I am not always sure that it was maybe the right choice but I fell in love with her from the start. She is 1 year and 9 months' and is 1,63m she eats every two weeks 1 big rat. She is been handled between me and my son.Lately she is been skittish if I can put it that way every time we want to take her out of her cage she moves away or gets into strike mode, she did shed about two weeks ago,usually she will lay still and smell at our hands  thats now if she was not sleeping and we wake her up then she will hiss and get over it and then just don't care if we pick her up or not. She striked at my son and give him quite a bite now we are scared of her and don't really want to handle her. I don't want to get rid of her I would like to know if you can maybe help at how to handle her. This is not the first time that she bit him the first two times she had reason to bite him he handled a mouse and forgot to wash his hands 2nd time she got a fright and she bit him. I also went through 1 but it was the same I accidently bump her nose and she bit me. Around here by us is not really someone that can guide us in caring and handling of her. What I know is what I got from the Internet. We are also planning in building her a bigger cage maybe any suggestions on that I would like to have a big tree/stump in there so she is not laying on the cage floor the whole time. We do take her outside in the sun and she is usually crawling around outside around the swimming pool, she does not like to be in her water bowl the moment you put her in she makes a run for it. She have enough heat and light in her cage gets vitamins with every feed she is handled on a daily basis even when she is shedding we will have look at her and touching her. Maybe we just need to get over our fear for her. It will be highly appreciated if you can help us.

Answer
Firstly, don't handle her when she's shedding. Snakes are completely blind (or close to) when they are shedding and picking them up at this time will cause them stress and they may bite.

you didn't say whether you got her when she was a baby or when she was already a sub-adult. if the former then don't read this paragraph. if you got her when she was a sub-adult you need to leave her alone and don't go inside the tank unless it's completely necessary for about a month. snakes need to get used to a new environment so that they feel secure in it. if you go into her cage and handle her as soon as you get her, or shortly after, she wont feel safe in her home and will become stressed and will get aggressive.

NB) Before you do anything, it is a good idea to have only one person doing these things so that the snake can get used to one person first and then be introduced to the other. Also, snakes can tell if you are nervous or scared, as the moves you make are less sure. the snake can pick up on that and will make use of it to try and get you to back off. so when you try anything, be confident and know that you are the one in control of the situation.

There are a few options you can try to get her to tame down:

1) Leave her alone and don't handle her for about 2-4 weeks to let her calm down a bit. after the 2-4 weeks is up, try again and if she's still aggressive try the next option.

2) leave an item of your clothing - (preferably an old one and one that has been worn recently and not washed) inside your snake's vivarium for a few nights. this lets the snake get used to you scent and stop seeing it as a threat, hopefully allowing you to pick her up. if not...

2) You can get try ahold of a snake hook if its possible, and attempt to take her out using that first. some snakes tend to prefer being taken out on a snake hook first before being placed in their owners hands. so try that. take her out on a snake hook and when you feel confident, slowly and gently lift her off the hook and into your hands. if this fails move to the next option.

3) Wear some thick garden gloves. these will protect you from being bitten to some extent. go into her cage and try and take her out. if she becomes aggressive and starts to hiss or bite, continue to take her out regardless of whether shes hissing or biting (if possible) and try to get her off the ground and into your hands, at which point she should calm down a bit. This contradicts any common sense but the logic here is that she will realise that hissing at you or biting you wont achieve anything and she will hopefully give up after a few weeks. if you do back down when she fights back she will feel that by doing so, she can gain control over you and will continue to do it. eventually though, she will hopefully stop biting and you can attempt to pick her up using your bare hands.

This option does require a lot of confidence and is easier to use on smaller snakes - for obvious reasons, so use this as a last resort. Many people will argue with me about this one but I've used it on both my boas and now they're as good as gold =)


Unfortunately, some snakes can't be tamed - its just how they are, but hopefully one of the methods above will work, and you snake will become a great pet.

Thanks for your question,

Andy