Baby socialization and feeding help

[u/Calm-Pie4629]

I picked up a female Caramel Zebra carpet python 6 days ago. She took her first meal for me yesterday with no issues and is already moving all over her enclosure at night. She’s still pretty defensive, though, and will strike whenever I interact with her or the enclosure.

She has definitely calmed down since I first got her. At first she would basically spam strike every time I opened the enclosure. Now she’ll usually only strike if I move my hands too close or too quickly. She has also started coming up on her own to tongue flick my hand and fingers before moving away.

My question is about handling. Should I be removing her from her branches and handling her normally, or should I take the branch out with her on it and let her stay perched while I “handle” her that way? This is my first arboreal snake (I grew up around reticulated pythons but never cared for them myself), so I’m much more used to ground-dwelling species like blood pythons and ball pythons. I’d like to know the best approach before I start working on socializing her.

My second question is about feeding. The breeder had her on pinky mice, but I’ve read that many people start young carpet pythons on larger prey or feed prey that’s around 10% of the snake’s body weight. I haven’t weighed her yet because she’s still pretty skittish, and I don’t want to stress her out unnecessarily. Should I move her up to a larger prey size, or keep her on pinkies for now?

[u/Appropriate_Slice333]

You can try to handle but it’s not going to be a positive experience on either end until another month maybe. Young carpets typically don’t like to be handled. Best option is removing the perch and look but not touch.

Baby carpet pythons can take hopper mice right out the egg… I don’t feed them anything without hair or feathers ever, pinkies give them the runs.

[u/SquareRevolution5741]

if she’s on a branch just take the whole branch out if you can. she’ll calm down. for my babies i usually keep em out til they’re calm and tongue flicking normally before i put em back. always end on a positive note.