Do you clean your racks on a certain day or as it gets soiled?

[rj1204]

I have a 10 snake rack with 7 snakes. I have recently acquired all of my BP's and they are all breeders above 900 grams. I was wondering if you guys check your racks daily and clean them as they soil or just designate one day to cleaning. I met a breeder that designates every Saturday to clean all his racks since he said he does not have time to check 100+ racks on daily basis. He advised that since he works a 40 hour work week during the week, he designates Tuesday night to feeding and they usually poop by Saturday, so that is the day he cleans all the tanks. I obviously do not have a lot of BP's, but wanted to leave my snakes alone as much as I can.

All my rack temps are stable and humidity stays around 50-60% consistently, so I have no real reason to mess with the racks a lot.

Is it better to just leave them alone and handle them/clean their racks on a weekly basis or check the racks daily/every other day for fecal matter? Is it ok for them to sit in the rack with fecal matter for a few days (I know this will happen on occasion when I am out of town on a rare occasion anyways)? Thanks for any advice!

[2kdime]

All my animals get checked twice daily, morning and night.

If soiled, the paper is changed.

Every other day they get fresh water

Feed on Fridays

Every Sunday, every tub is cleaned whether it needs it or not and gets fresh paper.

[bsash]

I don't use racks, I use Repti-racks plastic cages, just for my viewing pleasure. I clean them as they get soiled, and fully clean and disinfect every other month. Hope that helps you a little bit.

[stevepoppers]

If you've got the time to check on them every day, you might as well. It won't really bother them. You ought to be changing the water anyway. If you have loose substrate, spot clean it. If you have something like newspaper, switch it out.

I think this is all more of a personal thing than anything to do with the snakes themselves. There's no reason to leave them alone that much.

[Boanerges]

I personally check all my tubs on a daily basis. I clean any tubs that are dirty daily. I do not have one set day a week to clean tubs. Every day is cleaning day for me -lol

[rj1204]

Wow, clean water every other day? I definetely plan on giving them fresh water, but probaly once a week, when I clean the cages. If I just clean them when they soil the cages, then maybe I will just give them clean water at that time.

Right now, they have only been with me for a week so I am trying to not "over-mother" them and let them adjust. I have one female that is a psycho. Everytime I open her rack, she is right there in strike position and comes out very quickly. She bit me on day one but I know she was just hungry and irritated from being Fed Ex'd. She is about 1000g and she ate two small rats the first day she arrived and another two rats on Tuesday! She sat on the heat for two days after and now she is back at the front waiting for me to open the rack. The temps are perfect along with the humidity. Hopefully she calms down to let me check her tub, clean it, and give her clean water.

Thanks for the advice. I think I am going to keep an extra rack or two clean and sterile and when my girls defecate, I will switch tubs and clean the dirty tub at that time or later. I will change the water at the time I clean the tub. If they don't go for over a week, I will just change the water weekly.

[mpkeelee]

i only have two right now so its easy. i check their tubs multiple times throught the morning day and night and if its soiled it gets cleaned as soon as i get an extra minute. my normal went off feed for a while so she didnt poop or anything for a while but i still cleaned it about every week.

[BPelizabeth]

I only have 5 BPs a desert tort, a beardie and a BTS....I clean their cages everyday and try to catch it as soon as they go. I am sure if I had 100+...it might be a different story and I might set aside a couple of days each week.