How to Read Snake Body Language and Not Get Bit 

I have a Ball Python for nearly a year now and hes NEVER tried to strike/bite me. He's an absolute sweetheart. My husband got him for me for Christmas last year from a breeder at a reptile expo and the breeder told my husband that my snake has had a LOT of human interaction and socializing. I actually took him to Petco yesterday. I love him so much!!

I think boas are the trickiest for newer keepers, they almost always are "S"d up naturally always looking like they wanna pop ya, whether they actually want to or not. Great vid J 👍

I was sitting with my baby Marter Blood Python female watching you. Every time she saw a defensive snake close up, she would strike a warning at it. Snakes understand snake language as well. I put her back in her home. Her tongue was sticking just a bit out of her mouth to figure where your snake would strike.

As someone who is not new to reptiles but new to snakes this content is gold, love your channel.

Hello, ..., I'm NOT glad I saw you, get bitten, because your upbringing is not the target of biting snakes. Next time don't repeat this mistake, I think other breeders like us, will agree with me personally....we are here to discover new smart things to evolve our collections. Jason, you are an exceptional person to teach us new things and all your videos are exceptional qualities for our education. Thank you very much for sharing this with us. People who ask you to see stings and or Bites have no place here, because they don't know that you are going to destroy hundreds of hours of work, patience and evolution with your subject or your protege, by less than 10 seconds. It's really a shame to do that. In any case, I thank you once again for your work which is exceptional and which you share with us, while commenting on your work. It was wonderful. THANK YOU. Fabien from Luxemburg. A big fan of your vlogs.

That's exactly how my corn snake is super nervous and gets into the same posture as your scales. It's my fault for not handling her often, but she's always been nervous and flighty. Awesome video.

Bro i do enjoy your educated works ,,,, Very great info ,,, may the new year be even more of a susccess for u and yours ,,, Reptile Luvvvvv 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

Don't like to get bit anymore... lol. Anymore. Love It

12:05 min was interesting because it also seemed that she was sleeping but then she tried to bite

Those postures can be very confusing to someone like me who’s still learning what to look for. Heavy breathing is usually that defensive get away from me sign lol.. the not moving at all with no tongue flicks is very helpful. Thanks Jason!!

I got lucky with my boa. She's never tried to bite me even when she was little. It's definitely obvious when she's hungry but never defensive.

My Guyana red tail has a lot of reddish irridecense. I’m no snake expert but that’s the kind of snake I was told she is

I’m probably going to be needing some mentoring, I just purchased my first snake I believe she’s a female and she’s about 7-8’ long 4-5 yo red tail tree boa, she’s extremely docile but with her size she can nonetheless be a little intimidating!

Curious what snake with the possible exception being a black mamba, will chase a person? Who in their right mind will take a hungry boa out to feed in a different container? Tap train your boas! If my boa ever refused food, it would be cause for a trip to the vet. The day after eating, he would lie and say he was starving, lol. I have never thought a bite was all that painful (even from my BCI), but then again I don't think piercings (have 30) or tattoos are all that painful either.

Oh man my nicaraguan boa was a firecracker.

Awe, she's so calm now. I saw the first video by accident before this video. She lit you up!!! She was having a bad day, I felt bad too.

Thank you

An idea for a future video is actually to show how to tame an adult snake that is defensive only because it never got used to humans via handling or something (Im not talking about wild caught ones).

I asked so many creators for this kind of content years ago. Great vid! 👍

Hey brother, I'm glad to see you back from the holidays. Hope you had a good Christmas and New years.

Great video Jason thanks! Good stuff to learn as we are getting into these bigger snakes now C&J Reptiles and Exotics

Jason, you are awesome man!!!!!!!!!!

Super important video my man great job I haven't had anywhere near the amount of animals or experiences you have, but over the past 6 years or so I've gotten pretty used to how most South American boas behave, and I say that only because I have mostly had common imperator morphs, But this little Argentine boa has been similar to figure out. She however hated my guts for the longest time, I had some defensive and nervous babies before, but nothing like her I felt almost embarrassed because here was this itty bitty little baby snake and she was so loud and struck so much that she still managed to put me on edge lol Soon I just learned that you need to show her that her drama does not work, trying to distract her didn't work, you had to just reach in and get her. Once you picked her up and reoriented her she was always fine, it was just whenever you put her down and had to get her again that she went back into that mode These days she is one of the sweetest snakes I've ever owned The animals that I found to be harder to read have been dumerils Boas and blood pythons Go figure I'm like the one person who had a couple of defensive dumerils Boas. One was a little baby who bit and struck along with refusing to eat. he was only my third snake and I unfortunately gave into frustration and ended up trading him away. I'll probably regret that for the rest of my life, cuz I felt like I kind of gave up on the poor little guy and I really wanted him and didn't want another ball python which is what I ended up receiving in that trade. Although that python was incredibly sweet and easy to work with But I had another juvenile one who was just nervous. If you unexpectedly moved your hand in front of his face you would get a nip, if you were moving things around in his enclosure you would get a nip, and if you spooked him during shed he would turn into a downright monster. Conversely the one that I got as an adult was one of the chiliest animals I ever had. But it kind of made between all three of them a little bit hard to always understand what they were thinking. My blood python was always nervous, I tried eventually totally reorganizing his enclosure and giving him a lot more security and eventually space when he got to be big enough to need it, but that almost actually made him more defensive. I think when I had a little bit less stuff for him to hide in or burrow under he would just kind of tense up but accept that you were there to interact with him. But then when he was able to really hide he became very defensive of his enclosure and before you even knew he was there he would tag you They can also be somewhat bizarre animals to read because they'll often be very vocal with you, but kind of like Burmese pythons it doesn't always mean that they're upset. Sometimes however it does He's another one who just was not providing me any kind of joy to keep and he's with a more experienced blood python keeper now. At the very least I hung on to him until I found someone absolutely trustworthy to take him, because boy I got a lot of other garbage offers from people who didn't know what they were talking about I have a couple of Sumatran short tail pythons however who are very reactive still however neither of them have ever been any kind of defensive. They can still be pretty nervous, but they never entertain the idea to bite But overall, I think I've had to settle on the fact that I really prefer to work with South American Boas. I would like to get back into dumerils Boas at some point, I think they're gorgeous and make great pets when they're Well behaved and established on food. But I think they can be kind of tricky to get them to both of those points sometimes. But for consistency and enjoyability to work with, it's been common boas and now this little Argentine girl despite the fact that she was a bit of a project. Buddy if you're reading all of this you're the best, and I think you should look back at your earliest videos and cross-reference them with your latest ones and see just how much muscle you have put on! Proud of you

Love it I’m from Boston I’m Italian and I talk wit my hands lol. I’m from Fall River mass and I felt this lol 😂

Love u Jason ❤ with ya fine ass keep those videos coming been a fan 3 yrs so far u literally help me raise my snake. #LoyalFan

Thanks brother. It's always a pleasure.

I enjoy watching your videos. I watch videos on snakes to learn so your no BS approach is great.

Excellent video! I have a yearling, red tail boa, and I’m wondering, how long after her feeding should I wait to handle her? I do not want to elicit regurgitation.

This video is freaking Great. I am closing in on buying my first RedTail and I appreciate this so much 🙏. I was glued the entire time. Will be Rewatching probably another 2 or 3 hundred times between now and tomorrow 😂

Any dwarf boas going up for sale soon? Checked the site

My snake Sir Hiss is a saint, but I seriously need to get better at reading his body language! Thank you for making this video 😊. I’d love to better understand my little dude

The Corn snake was comical 😂 trying to act tough

Super super cool boas and great information 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Thank you for this video! Always an education watching you and how you interact with these beautiful animals.

I love your videos bro, it’s helping build my confidence with one of my corns that wants to destroy me as soon as it sees me 😂 happy new year bro!

Keep the videos coming 💪

Lol I love your videos ❤ ty

Thanks for the video Birdman.

Jason thanks for your videos man. They’re educational and a joy to watch.

what is your bedding, it looks pretty

Love the video am still learning my retic body lang so this help out alot

Jason I thank you for this amazing videos. Your knowledge is truly been helping understanding the positions. I am impressed on the moisture levels the substrate.

My boa gives kisses. If she doesn't like someone, she backs away. She hasn't even tried to bite anyone yet. If she does it will be my 12 yr old son, he gets grabby with her. He has been warned by the snake and by me. She gives him the S shape and I scream at him. She's a sweet lovable snake and I want her to stay that way.

Thank you so much for your videos

How to tell when a female boa is ready to breed how many snakes do you have

How do you go about working with a snake as defensive as the last one? I have a full grown male CRB that is just like that and want to work with him.

Great content

very nice and interesting vid jason , keep up the good work my friend (;

I have an albino het anerthystic boa she's my first real defensive snake is it good to handle her more to break defensive posturing or is it to much stress Also this will help my wife a lot she's not very good at reading there body language

I think you woke the snake at 11:33 up from a nap 😅

You're a breeder so there isn't enough time to socialize everyone. A pet that gets attention shouldn't be bitey unless there's an issue or some snakes are just jerks. Great video!

what snake hook do you use?

Realistically how bad would a bite be from a hypo malinistic boa?? her head is huge and I'm very nervous about her, i have handled her a few times since rehoming her a few months ago and she can be a bit all over the place, advice is needed please as I'm used to my calm big boa

I just picked up a really big male. About 6’ an heavy hes a puppy dog too. Its a 4’x2’x 18’ animal plastic Rite now my house is very cold his hot spot is belly heat 90 an his ambient goes 74. Thats the best i can get it with out a heating panel which i cant find. Is that ok for now.

Im having trouble with my girl she's not that old and im scared of her wanting to bite she has been very aggressive these oast couple of days

👍👍

I've kept snakes for almost 10 years but have never been bitten at all 😅😅

If your worried about getting bit start a garden😉

Why are so many of your snakes so aggressive? Do you just not handle them very much because they are for breeding? I've owned corns, balls pythons, and boas and none of them have been anywhere close to as aggressive as the ones you showed in this video and several other videos. Only my boa would ever strike at me and only rarely, none of my ball pythons or my old corn snake ever did, I could reach in and grab them without fear every time.

I got mistaken for food by my 10ft carpet python, while she was wrapped round my arms, when she went into feed mode and started trying to eat my hand, not swallow it but she definitely thought she had food and was killing it. It took me 15 mins to get her off. Not only did I have the trauma of that. But I didn’t realise the very badly bruised bite had developed an infection in my hand, till I hit cellulitis and nearly lost my arm. She’s always been a bit viv defensive but loves lots of handling, this was not like her, but there was something around that smelled of her food. I’m now too scared to hold her and I don’t trust her it’s breaking my heart, because I’ve had her 17 years and I never thought I could ever feel this way about her. It’s also affected my interactions with my other snakes. Do you have any advice you can give me? I’ve never used a snake hook, do they work with snakes that have not been tap trained?