Posted by MsTT on February 04, 19100 at 19:40:46:
David Girk wrote:
"I posted to get the point accross that I didn't appreciate someone
posting a pic and saying it was me. As for the handling "most" of the ones
I free hand are fixed. I feel it is between the animal and its keeper and
not the "dictators" who does what."
I absolutely agree. This is a free country, or at least it pretends to
be, and adult citizens should have the right to skydive sans parachute if
they want to, given that they make that decision in a sane and sober state
without undue coercion. Anyone who thinks they can dictate how you choose
to handle your snakes is unlikely to be successful, unless you are harming
others in the process. Despite the common mythology on this subject,
venomous keepers really don't pose a significant danger to anyone but
themselves. I know of no cases in which an escaped venomous snake has
bitten anyone who was not actively trying to handle or capture it.
"The animal in the post I put up has been worked with weekly since it was
a baby and not by just me. The person I got him from a year ago used to
free hand him also. There are alot of people out there that do alot more
dangerous things like Drink and Drive & Sky Dive. I think the main thing
is building the trust between the animal and the owner. And "knowing the
animal"!."
I am not going to tell you how to handle your animals, but I will state
unequivocally that snakes are not equipped to feel any such emotion as
trust. Many venomous snakes can recognize their keepers, and can become
habituated to them to the point that handling is not stressful to the
animal and not likely to provoke a bite. That is not exactly the same as
tame, and definitely not the same as trust, even though it certainly looks
that way.
There are a number of factors that can cause a snake to behave in a
totally unpredictable manner. Some of them are totally outside our
control and even our perception. Is there a mouse nesting in the walls of
your house whose scent may trigger an unexpected feeding response? Has
the snake been highly stressed recently by something you are not aware of,
such as a change in breeding condition, an undetected injury, disease or
parasite? Could an inadvertent motion of your hand look to the snake like
an item of prey, or a looming predator, seperate from the individual it
knows as its keeper?
I have had very tame animals whose feeding reflexes could be triggered by
the wrong twitch of my fingers. I could "trust" them not to make a
defensive or aggressive bite, but not to leave my fingers unbitten if I
moved them in a way that suggested food. I have also had perfectly sweet
animals turn unpredictably aggressive during breeding season. I also made
the mistake once of eating sushi and shortly thereafter picking up a
perfectly tame water snake, which of course smelled a feast on my fingers
and proceeded to dig in with gusto.
Several other sweet, calm, nonaggressive (and nonvenomous) snakes have
nibbled on my anatomy during similar incidents of what I classify as
"mistaken identity", including one Burmese python that thought my sock was
lunch because it was fuzzy and warm. Snakes can and do at times attempt
to ingest really inappropriate prey items. Who knows what triggers the
notion in a snaky little brain that something is worthy of an exploratory
nibble? I had a cottonmouth I would classify as very docile and
nonaggressive, but he had a tendency to explore things with his mouth to
find out whether or not they were edible. I'm sure I could "trust" him
not to bite me out of aggression or fear, but a playful nibble from this
formidable beastie would not have been any fun even if he never meant to
cause any harm.
You can work with a snake for years and feel that you know it and trust it
completely. Unfortunately, the snake doesn't have quite the same capacity
to know and trust you. Their brains are small bundles of nervous
reflexes, and many things can trigger those reflexes that are not within
your control.
Regards,
MsTT