Baby male tail wagging in bath?

Hi everyone, so my male bp is now about 6 months old. He had eaten Monday, which was 2 days ago, and I decided to put him in the bathtub to soak maybe to try and get him to poop before I held him (he's already pooped twice on me, once unprepared, the 2nd time I had paper towels :cool: ). The water was lukewarm, and only half way up his sides, not even enough for him to swim in. He was enjoying it for a few minutes, sitting and moving slowly, then he started wagging the end of his tail. Which I've never seen before, so I was like woah, so cute! I looked it up on the forums, and lots of people talked about it being related to mating season or whatever, but he's only 6 months. I thought maybe he was about to poop, but never did. So I came here to ask, why do you think he did it? He did it twice, each for a good minute or so. He didn't seem agitated, he wasn't moving very fast or anything. I took him out about 5 or so minutes later and he never did it again. (He did yawn though after a few minutes of being on my lap :D ) It was the first time I've seen it so. Wish I had gotten a video, it was so cute!

My red tail boa does that before she poops. Never seen my BP do it but I haven't had her that long yet and I've never caught her pooping, I just wake up to a present on the cool side of the cage in the morning. Not sure about BPs but boas will also do that when hunting, I forgot what its called but its used to try and lure prey to them so they can strike and grab it.

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Originally Posted by Tarasaurus

Hi everyone, so my male bp is now about 6 months old. He had eaten Monday, which was 2 days ago, and I decided to put him in the bathtub to soak maybe to try and get him to poop before I held him (he's already pooped twice on me, once unprepared, the 2nd time I had paper towels :cool: ). The water was lukewarm, and only half way up his sides, not even enough for him to swim in. He was enjoying it for a few minutes, sitting and moving slowly, then he started wagging the end of his tail. Which I've never seen before, so I was like woah, so cute! I looked it up on the forums, and lots of people talked about it being related to mating season or whatever, but he's only 6 months. I thought maybe he was about to poop, but never did. So I came here to ask, why do you think he did it? He did it twice, each for a good minute or so. He didn't seem agitated, he wasn't moving very fast or anything. I took him out about 5 or so minutes later and he never did it again. (He did yawn though after a few minutes of being on my lap :D ) It was the first time I've seen it so. Wish I had gotten a video, it was so cute!

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They do it when they are stressed too. My money is on the fact that he really didn't enjoy the swim.

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Originally Posted by yl4870

They do it when they are stressed too. My money is on the fact that he really didn't enjoy the swim.

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Hard to know for sure. But "lukewarm" to us is probably too hot for a BP.

Honestly..you snake hardly, if ever needs to soak. Only if they have retained shed!!! What feels "lukewarm" to you, can burn your snake..He was most likely stressed :weirdface:weirdface

There's no need to bathe a snake. It just stresses them without any benefits. The things you take as being signs of 'happiness' (curiosity and moving around, tail wagging, ect) don't mean the same thing in a snake as they do other animals.

I've given him baths before and he's never done that, so that's why I asked. And by lukewarm, I mean just barely above being cool water. I handle him once or twice a week, he's never missed a meal, and poops regularly pretty much, so I'm not worried much about him being "too stressed out". I just thought it was odd of him to tail wag. I'm assuming he just didn't enjoy this particular bath lol. But thanks everyone who chimed in with extra advice

all my BP's appear to hate water, so i only bathe them if they pooped and then crawled in it (:colbert:) or when those damn mites appear out of thin air (which they like to do about every 5-6 weeks or so it seems)