14/09/2020
𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗼 𝗦𝗻𝗮𝗸𝗲
When I'm at reptile shows here in California, I always bring at least two adult Eastern Indigo Snakes for people to see and handle. I spend a lot of time giving instruction on the proper handling I want to see, and I decided it would be useful to post this in a manner that the entire Drymarchon community could access. For baby snakes and juveniles, much of this advice is not so critical, but for adult Indigos, it is very important. Because Indigo Snakes are a heavy-bodied, terrestrial snake with a high metabolism, this is an area where a lot of people make potentially very costly mistakes.
First of all, always try to hold your Indigos up near eye-level while standing. Try to maintain a lot of eye-contact, and try to give them freedom of movement within the constraint of being held. If you hold them lower, they will see the ground or a table/object and will continuously be wanting to get down onto those surfaces (they are intensely curious and want to explore on their own). You'll be restraining them excessively and that could be perceived by the Indigo as irritating or provocational. When you maintain eye-contact, the animal will know you are a human and will respect you. When they don't have that eye-contact, they might forget. All of the bites I've ever endured when an Eastern Indigo was out of a cage (extremely rare for adults) occurred when I wasn't making eye-contact and was restraining their movement.
Always support the tail of an Indigo. I watch people making this mistake all the time. If you don't and the animal feels off-balance, it will flail its tail (like we would flail our arms) and if the tail tip contacts a hard surface, you can easily end up with broken bones in the snake's tail (remember that the tail is tapered like a whip and there will be a lot of energy transmission to the tip if it swings and hits something).
When handling an Indigo Snake, try to keep its body at a constant elevational level. Don't hold the animal over your neck and shoulders as the height disparity in the vertical dimension is overly taxing on a terrestrial snake's heart, especially a large, heavy-bodied snake like an Indigo. This is less relevant for juvenile Indigos but hugely relevant for adult Indigos. Excessive handling, like more than 30 minutes continuously, is also very hard on them. Being handled is exercise and exertion for them (remember that snakes spend most of their time just hanging out and chilling). These two factors are what cause the majority of heart problems in Indigos, not inbreeding/line breeding/bad breeder and all that alarmist stuff that others make up. People that are new owners of a large Indigo in particular are very likely to make these two mistakes and end up with an animal that dies or develops an enlarged heart.
In the picture below, you can see that as the man in the foreground geeks out over one of my 8 foot males at a recent reptile show, I'm maintaining a gentle hold on the animal's tail (the Indigo is helping me with this) and I'm making sure that the body of the animal is at a relatively constant level. When people are preoccupied with the amazing experience of handling and interacting with an Eastern Indigo, they will frequently forget the instruction I just gave them.
Remember that Indigo Snakes become uncomfortable if the temperature is too warm - above 29C (84F) for adult Eastern Indigos. Although they don't sweat 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘦, they transpire water through their skin to cool just like humans do. You will be warming them up by handling them. If you hold the animal in front of you in your hands/arms, it will be able to keep itself cool more effectively than if it is against your body or around your neck where it is absorbing much more of your body heat.
Finally, try to remember not to make rapid movements with your hands or any part of your body while handling an Indigo Snake. No matter how accustomed the animal is to being handled, rapid movements will startle them unnecessarily. Talk to them too. Although they don't have ears, they can hear you very clearly via the highly sensitive nerve receptors in their skin, and you can watch them cerebralize and respond to you. 🙂
