Ball Python Page

What is an "SFE", you ask...Well, put simply, Stupid Feeding Error.

Of all the cases of pet snakes biting thier owners, probably 90% of them are due to an SFE. This is where you, the keeper, does something dumb, thoughtless, and undeniably stupid which causes a hungry snake to mistake you for food. It usually ends with you running to a sink, (after prying a snake from your hand, arm..etc.)to wash off and clean out a bloody, painful wound...All the time wondering..."What did he do that for???".

This section contains stories of SFE's for your education, or enjoyment. Maybe by laughing at someone elses stupid mistakes, this same situation won't happen to you the next time you get complacient around a hungry snake.

Before we get into the stories, I would like to offer these tips that will eliminate most SFE's from ever happening

1) ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS wash your hands before handling any of your snakes...Even if it is normally the most gentile snake in the world...The slightest scent of food on you, can transform even the most docile snake into a demon serpent, hell-bent on eating your hand.
2) Try to feed your snakes somewhere other than in their enclosure. There are two reasons for this...1)If you feed the snake in his enclosure, it will asscociate the opening of the cage, with feeding time. This can be a bad thing when you just want to reach in and pick the snake up. It may mistake your hand for food and strike. 2)Feeding your snake inside it's enclosure can also cause it to inadvertantly swallow some of it's substrate while it feeds, which is not good for it and can cause many problems...from mouth rot, to impaction, even death. For these reasons, I feed my snakes in large rubbermade tubs.
3) ALWAYS use hemostats or tongs to offer food to your snakes. NEVER hold the prey in your hand.
4) I always use a snake hook to move my snakes back to thier enclosures after feeding as they are sometimes still in hunting mode and will strike at hands thinking they are mice.

Snake hooks and a good long pair of hemostats are things no snake keeper should be without.

ON TO THE STORIES!!!! ENJOY!!!!

My SFE Story...

It was feeding day for my 3 Ball Pythons and my boa, and just like any other feeding day, I went to the local herp shop around the corner to get some feeder mice. Once there, I realized thier selection was a bit skimpy on this day...a lot of small mice. So I, looking to get the most for my money, started fishing around through the mice for the bigger ones. After a few minutes I found the ones I wanted, grabbed them, payed for them and proceded to return home. Now I don't feed my snakes inside thier enclosure, just my preference. I have a big cardboard box that I use to feed my snakes in...So once home I started getting everything ready for "Dinner time". Once everything was ready to go, I went to get the first snake, a five foot Ball Python...I went over and opened up his enclosure, just like any other day, and reached in to grab him..."WHAM!!!" Before I could blink, he lunged out of his hide rock and chomped down on my hand. Luckily, he didn't really like what he bit into and let go without any problems. I was stunned...I sat there on the floor, bleeding and in pain, all the time wondering why such a normally docile snake, that had never even attempted to bite before, would just up and strike at me. I couldn't understand it...The fact that my hand had been fishing through a tank of mice only 10 minutes earlier never crossed my mind. It wasn't until 15 minutes later, as I was digging a tooth out of my sore, bloody hand, that I realized what had just happened. In all my preperations for this routine feeding, I had forgotten one of the basic rules of handling snakes...Always wash your hands before picking up a snake...ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY SMELL LIKE "DINNER"!!!!

SFE from Doug Leonard...

9-3-98 Well I guess it was inevitable... Last night I went to feed one of my yearling Irian Jaya Carpet Pythons and committed my first stupid feeding error (SFE)... I put him in the rubbermaid feeding container, but rather than just drop the prey in or offer it using tongs in the usual manner, I got lax (maybe hurrying) and dangled the mouse (prekilled) by the tail right in front of his head (stupid stupid stupid). The other hand held up the lid to close it as soon as he took the mouse. Well, as you might imagine, no sooner did he prepare to strike and I started to get the inkling that maybe this wasn't my brightest moment, than BAMM! He struck... not the mouse but two of my fingers... Didn't take but half a second and he was out of the feeding container, latched onto my fingers, and coiling around my hand AND the mouse. Ouch! It's always a shock how strong these guys can be. He wasn't in any way inclined to let go, plus my kids were around and were getting all hysterical. All I could think about was getting out of it without hurting him. Luckily, I remembered the advice offered and first, calmed myself and kneeled down on the floor, assuring my kids that everything was just fine. My daughter brought a little whiskey and I dabbed a drop right in front of the snake's face. After a few seconds he let go and was on the floor, still partly coiled around the mouse. I was starting to drip blood but couldn't leave him on the floor unattended, so I wrapped my hand in a napkin and gathered my composure. In a minute or two, he was eating the mouse, so I waited. I tried to pick him up a couple times after he finished eating but he kept striking out at me so I used a homemade hook to "herd" him into a paper bag and then to his "house." The whole incident was over in about five or six minutes, but believe me, it hurt! As a result of my carelessness, my fingers are a little bruised and stiff today, and display a nice ring of little teeth marks, but I'm more embarassed than anything. Even worse is the fact that my poor kids were kind of freaked out by the whole thing and they're scared of the snakes enough already. Thank goodness this didn't happen with my boa constrictor, which is substantially bigger than the pythons and would have certainly inflicted more damage. Lesson learned.

SFE from Slitherjef...

It was feed day for my boa constrictor (imperator), also was the task of cleaning the cage. Cages should be cleaned befor rodents are even placed into the room. Well, this day, I cleaned first and fed right after. 1 corn snake cage done, 2 corn snakes cages done, ball cage cleaned. Boa cage, uh, wait, shes at the top and she is hungry. Should I risk getting bit? How about this: give her a rat to constrict and while she was killing it, I'd pick her up and move her so I could clean her cage. Well the first part went smooth, she took the stunned rat instead of my hand (or so I thought), the next part was my sfe. SHe was killing the rat and I reached in to pick her up and the moment of contact, my hand was coiled up and constricted. Just like the rat. Every time I would move my hand to get it lose, she'd constrict more. After about 30 seconds of remaining calm (after all I was in no danger from a 3.5+ boa) and prying my hand away, I decided to just wait to see if she would let go if I could get her to let go. She didnt. I slowly forced my hand out of her grip and let her go about her biz.
I did get her cage cleaned that same night after she finished her rat meal and befor she had my hand for a main course. It was a experince to have my hand constricted but should she have been bigger, I could of been hurt or possibly killed.
Lesson learned

SFE from Slitherjef...

Most times, I feed my boa either stunned or prekilled prey. Prey is most times presented with bacon tongs (only thing safe enough to present food to hungry boids other then my fingers). It wasent much different this time, she was in her hide log, stunned rat in hand (the only time I will hand feed my boids is with a rat grabbed by the tail-and the snake needs to be in the hide box). she grabbed this one as normal. No danger on my behalf. mean while, there was a mouse in my corn snakes cage waiting to be eaten. I waited for the corn snake to eat its meal but he wasent hungry. the other snakes I have had done taken there fill and there refused prey. Squeezer- the bottomless pit boa had finished her main coarse and was wanting desert. I took the dead mouse out of my corn snakes cage and presented it to my boa using bacon tongs. I had the body of the mouse grabbed instead of the tail. A quick strike the mouse AND THE BACON TONGS WERE GRABBED and constricted. I honestly thought she was going to swallow the mouse along with the bacon tongs. I calmly tried to pry the tongs from my boa without hurting her. Three times I tried and fail. I let her finish killing the dead mouse hoping she would drop the tongs. she did. She was fine. so, when feeding your snakes, bacon thongs are fine but just don't grab the prey any were besides the hind end, preferably the tail.

SFE from Ra9e...

Time to feed the snakes, or so I thought. I had just come back from the pet store with dinner for my 2 Ball Pythons, Kingsnake, Corn snake, and 7' Red-Tail Boa. I fed all of the smaller snakes with no problem and then moved on to feed the Red-tail. When I opend the enclosure where Zeus, my Red-Tail, was housed I noticed he was in a shed. His eyes where opaque, but he still was intrested in the big fat rat I was going to feed him. Now, I had heard that you should't feed snakes that are in a shed, but then again, what was i going to do with this pre-killed now getting cold rat? I didn't think my Mom would like a dead rat in her freezer next to the frozen chicken, TV dinners and ice cream. Besides, I wasn't sure if Zeus would eat frozen food, being that I hadn't had him very long, I really didn't know. Well, then I made my stupid feeding error. I didn't want to waste a rat, which are rather expensive here in Maine, so I said to myself, I'm going to try feeding this snake. As I lowerd the rat into the enclosure, Zeus eagerly smelled the food. As I wasn't useing feeding tongs (stupid, stupid, stupid) I held on to the rat at the end of the tail. Zeus got ready to strike and at that moment, I wondered if this was really a good idea. Then WHAMMMM!!!!!! Zeus had me by the hand and I had the rat, which he wanted. I dropped the rat, but Zeus wasn't so ready to give up, he held on and coiled around my arm, not such an amusing thing when you have a Boa that is 7' long. I tryed to uncoil his body off of my arm, where as he was crushing me, but he still had his TEETH in my hand. I didn't want to rip out teeth by pulling his mouth off of my hand, so I let him chew on my hand for a little bit. Finally, and thankfully for me, he let go. I set him back in his place, with my hand now bleeding wildly, and went into the bathroom to see the damage. It looked worse then it really was, And it felt worse too. After I cleaned off my bloody hand and took a minute to regain my sanity, I looked over Zeus to make sure he was ok. After seeing that he was fine, I decided my Mom was just going to have to live with a frozen rat in her freezer. I leared a few valueable lessons, NEVER EVER FEED A LARGE SNAKE IN A SHED, BECAUSE HE CAN'T SEE YOU!!!!! ALWAYS HAVE AT LEAST ONE OTHER PERSON AROUND WHEN FEEDING LARGE SNAKES!! AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, USE TONGS!!!!!!!!

SFE from Brett Wolfe...

Generally, we consider ourselves very responsible owners, who also believe in live-feeding our snakes. We have a separate tank "The Rodent House of Death", and we keep it on the floor away from our snakes tanks. However, they now know about it, and like to 'hang out' there pretty much daily, as they seem to know that sooner or later a mouse is gonna be cruising down the game trail. Well, Hector, who is a baby Ball a little over 2' long now, was placed in the tank to feed, but he was facing the wrong direction to really notice the mouse (or so I thought). He has always been a rather skittish little snake, even hiding from mice when he was quite small (we have embarassing pictures to blackmail him with later!). Anyway, I decided (DOH!) that I would try to get him turned around in a better position. One thing I quickly learned is: DO NOT PUT YOUR HAND IN FRONT OF A HUNGRY SNAKE. Hector, poor skittish little fraidy snake, struck me a good one. Fortunately, he is still small enough that it drew a couple of drops of blood only, and barely stung. However, the lesson has been learned.

SFE from Gerald Cereghino...

I had just gotten two ball pythons and one needed to be fed. I work at a museum that does not stun the rats we feed our boas, and i do not like the idea of stunning mice because it could be a watse of money because the previous owners of the snakes told me they would not eat dead food. When it came time to feed Amber, my girlfriends 3 1/2 foot ball python, I took the mouse by the tail with bar-b-que tongs, the one with the open triangle on the botton. Right before Amber struck, the mouse leaned up to bite the tongs trying to make them let go. Amber struck the mouse, cought the mouses body and slid right into the open triangle on the tongs. With her body and the mouses body in the triangle, the mouse was squeezed and eventually ripped wide open because Amber was moving around trying to get out of the tongs. Some vegtable oil and about 5 minutes later amber was free, I was out $2, and i had a mouse with his insides, outside. Now Amber gets to hunt the live mice on her own, without the tongs.

If you have a SFE story that you would like to donate...e-mail it to me at ballpython@mindspring.com

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