ok... seriously- what's up with my corn?/ dude... i got bit.

[zimbabwepegasus]

I'm going to start at the beginning.
About 5 days ago, I was feeding and went in a somewhat different order.
Mira got fed first. Generally, one of the corns is fed first, then Mira, then the other corn. The corns are fed in a cricket keeper that I place inside their cages as they are generally on aspen. Once I place the mouse and cricket keeper in the cage, I then pick up the snake and place him and/or her in the cricket keeper. Mira is on paper towels and is fed directly on the substrate. So generally one corn gets fed first, usually Salvador, then I feed Mira and by then the other snake has usually eaten and exited the cricket keeper, so I wash it out and feed the next snake.
This night, I go ahead and heat up Mira's mousey (they've all gotten a wee bit spoiled) and feed her. Then I move onto Salvador. I put the cricket keeper down, having already placed the mouse in it and washed my hands. As soon as I go to pick him up, I just know he's gonna bite me. His body is oddly tensed and he's just not letting me pick him up. So I decide to get my hands on out of there and figure, he can find the damn mouse on his own. Just as I'm doing this, he doubles his head around, comes near my hand and has pulled away again in no time flat. I felt a weird prick, but genuinely wasn't sure if I'd gotten bit or just been so prepared to get bit that I imagined the slight hurt. Upon investigating my hand, I see nothing- but when I push my finger a little blood appears. Ok. I got bit. Meanwhile, I've knocked over the cricket keeper and Salvador has yanked the mouse out onto the aspen. I'm considerably less than pleased, but figure it's a pretty fruitless effort to try and take a mouse out of his mouth and that, while not ideal, plenty of people feed on aspen and chances are slim of something going awry. And I've learned that a bite from a 1.5 yr old cornsnake is absolutely nothing. Heck, my cat does worse on a daily basis.

Now that's just that. I've handled Salvador 3 times since this meal and he's just funny. His body is more taut and my normally extremely explorative, confident snake seems... a bit timid. This snake is not a hider, even when he's mostly in his hide, he's usually doing his turtle thing and using a hide as a shell. He's not head shy or anything, he's just keeping closer to me and more on my hands than he's ever been. He's not down my shirt, up on my head, around my upper arm, etc. He just kinda stays put. It's really, really strange.

The other weird thing I've noticed him doing once or twice is star-gazing, but he's not a boid. So IBD is boid thing only, right?
As much as I hate to anthropomorphize things- could my snake feel like he's altered the terms of our relationship? ... ok, that's just silly... but still why's he acting differently?
No changes in temp, meals, substrate, environment, or any thing in his world.
The only thing I can think is that I changed my laundry detergent about a month ago. But that seems like a really long stretch given that the change in behavior is less than a week old.
Anyone got any ideas?

 

[PastorAaron]

IBD isn't something to be concerned with, but temperatures (as always) are. Sometimes a spike in temps can have adverse effect on an animals brain function (doubt it, but a cooked noodle is possible...).
Only other health related thing I can think of is a shed coming on, but you'd have noticed weird behavior changes when shedding by now.
Some of my boas just get into pissy moods and nothing but time can bring them around...that's probably the case.
God Bless,
Aaron

 

[zimbabwepegasus]

So I know rheostats aren't perfect, but are they likely to cause a spike and then revert to normal?
My temp gun read 90 at the hot spot and he's still been hanging out over there...

He'll probably just get over whatever "it" may be . I'm not too worried as he looks healthy and is eating as usual

 

[wigglesworth]

hmmm odd
do snakes behaviours change as they get older?
at approximately what age do cornsnakes reach sexual maturity?
could this be puberty?

I've not noticed any changes is Noodles behaviour, think she's roughly the same age as Salvador although she is female and he's male

so you've finally been tagged Kerry and not by the snake you expected it from :lol: sounds like a little bit of an anticlimax

Noodle still hasn't shown any signs of aggression. Kind of thought there may be a chance she may bite the guy looking after the pets while we were away over Christmas, after he told us that she'd been hiding and he'd checked on her and gently proded her to make sure she was still alive :roll:
We fed her before we left and were away for 2 weeks. We don't get him to feed her while we're away he's no experience with reptiles except the 2 breif interactions he's had when we're there before the (now) 2 times he's came to put fresh water and food in while we're away. As it is I have kittens thinking of things that may go wrong, i just don't want to risk her having a bad feeding experience.

As it was the little madam left shedding until almost the day before we left so we only just managed to feed her and a day before the shed when the guy was visiting she nearly managed to get herself stuck in her hide :shock: the hide has a door, on the side and a ventilation hole top she used to be able to get thro both, but is now too big to get thro the top one.
Luckily she eventually reversed herself back out of it, it may have been me griping her gently but firmly stopping her going any further in that made her realise, but as I couldn't get her to come out I left her to it while discussing how we could cut her out if we had to and she got herself out thankfully.
We were just grateful that she did it before we went away the hole has now been securely blocked by 2 layers of fabric glue gunned in place

Sorry for ranting and digressing away from the origin of the post I ment to tell you at the time but was just so busy preparingto go away, then visiting all friends and family, and then got ill (damn families doing :roll: )

Hope you had a good Christmas and New Year Kerry
Gem x

 

[wigglesworth]

is Salvador still acting weird?

what you mean by star-gazing?

 

[zimbabwepegasus]

Nope he has normalled out.
Star-gazing when they sorta raise themselves and stare at nothing.- it's almost like a cat...

I did feed yesterday and was irrationally nervous about the whole event. Everyone was well behaved though. It's so funny, it didn't hurt, but I'm nervous. I think the speed factor just floored me. I need to get bit a couple more times.. I'm apparently not over it.

 

[Gail]

My male corns can get a bit feisty in the spring and I definitely noticed a personality change as they got older. My super docile male, Pan, got really cranky around 2 yrs old and was that way for quite a few months. He is better now but still has off days so I use a hook now to get him out of his cage.
Another possibility is that he smelled food on you. I know you washed your hands but some snakes have learnt to associate a certain soap smell with being feed or he could have just been really hungry and got excited. I have a MBK who will bit anything when she is hungry, silly thing always tries to eat the tongs.

 

[zimbabwepegasus]

Nah. He's fine again. I think he just smelled the mousey! :roll:

 

[Leologan42]

Might i suggest feeding them in the keeper but removing it from the enclosure. It sounds like when the keeper enters the enclosure he switches to hunt mode. He may start relating your hand to the keeper and thus to food.

I feed all four of my corns in their own keepers outside of their enclosures. I place the snake in first and let them get into "hunt" mode, then I add dinner.

Hope that helps.
You may also want to visit http://www.cornsnakes.com there are many reputable breeders on that site and lots of great breed related information

 

[zimbabwepegasus]

We've had two feedings since that have gone as usual. I think it was an isolated event. Maybe Mira's mouse wafted over a bit or I didn't scrub my hands as thoroughly as I ought to have. We've had no further weirdness.
Thanks for all your guys suggestions.
To a minor extent, I almost want him to tag me a couple times. I want to somehow get used to the speed with which they strike and now that I know his bite isn't gonna hurt...