How get Syrian used to being held?

[mikatelyn]

Thanks Souffle!
Smokey seemed to have tamed overnight with this method... but then he bit me for the first time ever out of nowhere.
After last night's session (yes, he did have about 10 minutes of down time between handlings, and he was up and about on his own, so I wasn't waking him up each time), I picked him up a couple of times this morning when he was already up. Around noon I made some rustling noises in his cage and he came out to explore, so I did a taming session over about 10-15 minutes where I kept giving him little treats and picking him up for about 30 seconds, then putting him back down. He kept coming back for more, then he started voluntarily walking out onto my hand! He was initially kind of sleepy looking, then became more and more alert, becoming increasingly excited and moving more quickly. He started walking from hand to hand faster, looked like he wanted to run out and explore. I kept putting him back in his cage and he kept walking back onto my hand when I offered it. Because he was walking faster I had to move my other hand up faster, and then he nibbled my thumb before taking a good bite (I bled from 2 little puncture wounds), then he nibbled my index finger (I moved it away before he could take a chunk out of that too). I kind of think he got excited and then confused because those were the fingers I was picking up food with, because other than that he seemed extremely comfortable with being handled. Or maybe he associates the left hand with safety and food since I usually have it palmed in that hand, and the right hand with coming to pick him up so he attacked it? Or just that I moved up too quickly with that hand and he got scared?
So I'm not exactly sure what to make of that, but I'll keep at this method because otherwise he seemed to be making fantastic progress.