How did you get him tame. I have an adult female I got from a friend. She hisses and strikes at me when I reach in the cage. I'm afraid to pick her up! The male I got with her is really tame.
All I did was keep picking him up even if he hissed or struck I wouldn't put him down until he was completely calm but then again it's so much easier taming babies than it is full grown adults...is she maybe just aggressive in the enclosure? Food aggressive?
I tried feeding her a rat, has not eatin since I got her. The first two times I did hold her with no problems. But now she is aggressive, my friends warned me that she was.
Do you have a snake hook? Sometimes boa constrictors (and other snakes) are easily disturbed by environmental changes. One minute they are resting in a controlled enclosure, and the next a large human being is entering...overwhelming their senses with our chemical signals, heat signature, and physical presence. This can be stressful for some snakes that aren't fully confident with humans, so their natural response is to make you go away so that their home can return to a stable, stress-free state. To do this, they may hiss or they may even strike. The key, like geckolover suggested, is to not let them beleive these tactics work. You want to develop a positive handling relationship with the snake, and let them know that hissing and striking won't keep you from doing what you need to do with them. Snake hooks are often great because many boas become more "tame" once out of their enclosure. If you can hook the snake inside of the cage and pull them out, they often relax some and allow you to go about handling them normally. Regardless, you need to be persistent with handling much like geckolover suggested. Consider it backtracking for every time the snake bluffs you away with a hissing display. Your confidence and body language is also important... it is astonishing how keen these animals are on our behavior.
Thanks Jeff for the good info. I have no experience with big snakes. My baby Woma was agressive and my African house snake, and now they are super tame. I had just got Central american boa this past spring and he is definetly bigger then my Ball pythons but he was already tame. The male that I got with her is tame, I carry him around the house when my dogs are outside. He is my avatar picture. Yeah it is overwelming for me having a big snake that is just as big as me [I'm only 5'tall] strike at me. My friend that has a lot of experience with snakes is going to come over with his snake hook and show me how to handle her, so I won't freak out. Thanks again Jeff and Geckolover. I will let you know how it goes.