|
My male orange king is indeed remarkably naughty. The female is a lot less psychotic. But considering how badly beaten up, weak, timid, emaciated and abused that king was when he first came in, I am extremely grateful that he has developed into a big strong confident animal after over a year of assist feeding and veterinary care. He bred two females this year and one of them is gravid! **does the happy herper dance** I like him a lot better as he is now, even if he does try quite vigorously to kill me every time I open his cage. LOL
Kings are smart cookies, capable of learning and making behavioral associations. I have to wonder if he was badly enough abused in capture and transit that he has learned to react very negatively to humans. I suspect that the uncomfortable veterinary care I had to give him in order to keep him alive didn't help either.
All of the adult cottonmouths I have personally captured in the wild (as urban nuisance animals, I don't generally take them from good habitat) have learned to ignore humans because nothing a human does to them is painful. Without exception, they are highly tolerant of being handled with a snake hook and they do not show defensive behaviors unless I have to grab and restrain them for some reason (eg, veterinary care). Many of the cottonmouths from the same area captured by other people who use less humane tools like Pilstrom tongs are permanently bad tempered and suspicious. X-rays of some of these animals show rib fractures and spine damage. Hmmm.
I think that snakes are capable of learning and that they do form behavioral associations, either learning to be desperately defensive to avoid pain, or learning that humans can be tolerated and ignored because they are harmless.
There may be other factors as well. All of the cottonmouths I have raised from neonates, either as wild captures or as captive bred animals, are absolute buttheads. A captive raised copperhead is a placid animal; a captive raised cottonmouth is generally a very snappish beast. No idea why this is.
A king that goes through extensive veterinary treatment comes out as a butthead. A mamba that goes through extensive veterinary treatment comes out placid and habituated to handling, even though most of the regular handling that it was subjected to involved some degree of pain and discomfort. Again, no idea why this is, but it holds pretty consistently true.
|