This just seems dumb...spa offers snake massage

They are a little inaccurate.

Yes there is a spa, several in fact, that offer python massages. No, they don't use any giant pythons, and the benefits have nothing to do with fear. I've seen numerous pictures and articles on Facebook related to these spas. I have seen ball pythons, RTB, and a few small Burmese used, usually a massage involves two snakes and two therapists, and the animals are well kept and fed on schedule, not just before a massage. Personally, I've said for a long time if I could train mine to massage on command I'd make a fortune with them. They are excellent therapy for my tension headaches and the pinched nerve in my neck.

Of course, given that we are talking about mainstream media here, expect them to take a nugget of truth and twist it into a mountain of fantasy to boost their ratings.

Gale

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BrandiR

Does the refrain-from-handling-after-feeding rule apply to all snakes, or just BPs? I can't imagine that having a huge rat or a bunny barfed onto your back would be all that rejuvenating.
I would no longer require that metabolism boost to help lose weight. At a minimum I'd at least lose the weight of my last meal.

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it sure does with retics. lol except i dont worry about them regurging so much as being in feed mode. my retic still looks like he's ready to strangle something else even when he's got a HUGE lump in him. and he stays in feed mode for usually 24-48 hours. i walk in my room and he's got his neck cocked following me back and forth. lol

I'm sure the point about them feeding the snakes 30 minutes before the message is a lie to make customers feel more comfortable. If that was the case they would either have a ton of snakes or severely over fed snakes assuming they are operating every day. I image they learned quickly that stressing out a snake right after it has eaten is a bad idea and now just lie about when they last ate.

I can't see this working if they tape the mouth shut. My snakes would freak out if something was holding their mouth shut and I don't see it being a relaxing or even remotely enjoyable message at that point.

I've tried to let many people get a retic massauge . . . they are all hesitant for some reason . . . :taz:

Ridiculous,first of all my snake has add when I hold him..he's all over the place and can't stay still..this also is a joke.

When I first looked at the title, I really thought is was going to be about someone who massages snakes.

The snakes mouths ARE taped shut, they use Bloods, balls and Burms from what I've seen

Links with some pics

http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/28/chill-...ssage-4164613/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...y.html#photo=3

Am I the only one who'd be more worried about getting pooped on?

When I was doing a volunteer thing with a reptile group, I was holding a 5ish foot Burm... we were joking it was a trade-off, we kept him warm via our body heat, he gave us back massages!

I couldn't imagine using it as an actual massage though. But hey, whatever floats their boat? :/ I'm not thrilled about the mouths being taped shut though.

one of them looks like a green tree python to me, anyway its something arboreal.

crawling on the back of some tourist and having the mouth taped shut must be especially terrible for an arboreal species.

really not nice.

but then, a while back i heared about some "venomous snake show" in thailand that leaves tourists horrified because several snakes die during each show, being killed in mongoose vs snake or human vs snake "fights".

then i remember this video where a bear and a monkey are forced to ride bikes and do a bike race, and the monkey and the bear get into a bike crash and the bear kills the monkey.

in some nations, animal rights are not advanced and they just treat them like we would treat dead things. so the problem is much bigger than just this spa. taping the mouths and forced handling is not nice, but at least they are not killing them.