Recently we returned from Broome and have been enjoying seeing all the animals and pets we haven't seen for almost a year.
Well, we enjoy seeing most of them again.
This little fella is Harrison, Harrison likes to bite. Me specifically for some reason, he seems to be a lot calmer with my mum.
Harrison is a Children's python or Stimson's python. Recent debate has concluded that they are essentially the same species and not distinct like previously thought but I will call him a children's python because that's what he supposedly was when we got him.
Harrison is around 2 feet long when he stretches out and came from a place called Homeless Herps. A rescue organisation that helps place abandoned or unwanted snakes, lizards, turtles and frogs (occasionally other things) in new homes. We have taken a number of animals from them in the past and there is always more looking for a nice home. Most of them are beautiful creatures and still very placid regardless of wherever they came from.
Sunny the albino Darwin python has a lovely nature and we take him to kids shows all the time.
Harrison however is a bit of a dick. No but he probably just wasn't handled enough when he was young to get him used to it. He is very reactive, especially to me and most people don't want to handle a reactive snake. Nobody enjoys getting bitten but getting bitten is also the only way to get them to stop biting.
The more you handle them the more comfortable they will become. The older they get the harder it is to get them used to handling and we don't really know how old Harrison is. Regardless I still like to get him out and hold him. This time he waited a whole 10 minutes until I was about to put him back until he bit me so not a bad little effort.
He has very small teeth but can grip on surprisingly well. He wrapped his body around me to hold on as if he wanted to suffocate and eat my hand. It generally does not hurt, far less so than say a cat bite. But when trying to get him off his mouth was twisting and his little teeth inside my hand were moving which stung a bit.
No real marks afterwards though and only a couple small drops of blood.
Even larger snake bites don't often hurt all that much and again a cat is probably far more painful in most cases.
How to get them to release.
There are a few different ways you can try to make them let go, you can attempt to unwind them from you and see if they will let go themselves. It's likely they won't and if they do will just try to latch on again.
You can run them under water, cold water not hot. We held Harrison and my hand under the tap for about 3 minutes and all he did was move around and readjust his position.
Next we tried dunking him in a bucket of water. Often if you put it underwater they will let go and surface. Snakes often bathe and can hold their breath for surprisingly long periods of time. I didn't do this for very long as while it is generally not dangerous there is always a small chance of them getting water into their respiratory system and getting ill, generally they will let go very fast if they are going to and when he didn't we pulled him back out.
Last thing we tried was unwinding him again but this time my mum held him by the tail and essentially started swinging him around, gently at first. Eventually he let go and she was able to quickly put him back in his enclosure, though not without a couple of strikes.
This is obviously not the ideal situation to try and get them used to handling as the trying to get them off can be stressful and they may associate that with you. A lot of the "bitier" snakes I have met will strike at you and then back off and then strike again, rather than latch on.
Don't worry Harrison I will leave you alone for a while now. Somehow I get the feeling we may never be friends but I will keep trying :D.
Sunny the super calm little albino also from Homeless Herps.
