I’m not gonna lie y’all, I’ve had my baby girl for about 3/4 months now and I’ve been handling her from the start. I handle her pretty much every day except the day before I feed her and a day or so afterwards. By handling, I mean I might hold her for like 10-15 minutes then I just leave her free either to roam around my room or I’ll put her in a big box with a bunch of toys that she can play with for anywhere up to a few hours. I usually put a lightly heated blanket in the box for her as well to make sure she doesn’t get too cold. Usually once she’s settled down and stopped playing with the toys, I’ll put her back in the tanks.

She’s never displayed any signs of being stressed that I know of. She seems to love being handled, whenever I leave her alone near anybody she almost always cuddles up with them (Ik it’s likely just because she wants to get warm), unless she decides it’s time to go on an adventure. The only time she pulls away quickly is if my hair accidentally taps her face, other than she seems to welcome petting and nose boops. The vets even said that I must be doing a good job handling her because she was very well mannered when I took her to her appointment. And the only times she’s refused to eat is when I tried to switch her over to rats, and she would literally eat the mouse that I heated up right afterwards no problem.

I was wondering if there’s any chance that she just likes roaming around outside her tank. She’s a very strong-willed snake, so I feel like if she didn’t want to be handled she would show that, because anytime I go to grab her from something she shouldn’t be messing in, she tenses up, and wraps her tail very tightly around whatever the object is.

Are there any other signs I should be looking for to see if she’s stressed? The only thing I can currently think of is that every once in a while at night she’ll try to escape the tank.