Tub death?

My friends roomate has/had a bp couple months now, they put her in a tupperware bad shed going on. Has an aquarium screen top tried to tell them before hand to cover it up and mist her down. She died in the tub??????? Water wasn't higher then mid body. Anyone else every have a snake die doing this? Trying to figure out what they did wrong, and everything they did was something I have done myself in the past with no problems, and don't want to make the same mistake.

How hot was the water? I've seen people basically cook their snakes before with insanely hot water. :(

Most likely was something else, I'm sure someone will come along with more ideas

How big was the tub?
Were there any air holes in the tub?
How long was the snake left in it?
Where was the tub placed while the snake was soaking? (Over a heat source?)

Snakes are excellent swimmers, and can lay under the water for several minutes without drowning...so it's pretty unlikely that it would die by drowning, but without knowing the exact facts about the set up, who can really say?

They also don't exchange oxygen at the same rate that we humans do....so in a reasonably sized container, even without air holes, they would have to have been trapped in it for an unusually long time to suffocate. But if the tub was really small, so that the snake had very little room, suffocation might come faster?

Or if the small tub was placed over a heat source that is set to heat a larger enclosure....might have caused a serious overheating inside the smaller container.

I'm sorry about your friend's snake. We may never know what happened. One thing I always do is caution people to never leave a soaking snake unattended.

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Originally Posted by purplemuffin

How hot was the water?

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That's an excellent question, too. Water that is too hot or too cold may burn or shock the system.

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Originally Posted by JLC

That's an excellent question, too. Water that is too hot or too cold may burn or shock the system.

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you know I never asked if they put the tub in the tank over heat pad. I'll get more info.......22 minutes she was in the tub. I'm glad I wasn't the one that told them to do this I would feel horrible.

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Originally Posted by chaoticstone

you know I never asked if they put the tub in the tank over heat pad. I'll get more info.......22 minutes she was in the tub. I'm glad I wasn't the one that told them to do this I would feel horrible.

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wow k I have never done that they did put the tub over the heat pad and under a light

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chaoticstone

wow k I have never done that they did put the tub over the heat pad and under a light

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That explains it, they cooked it

If it just died while soaking, i would suspect it took a breath under water and drowned.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chaoticstone

wow k I have never done that they did put the tub over the heat pad and under a light

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:(

22 minutes in a covered tub, over a heat mat, under a heat lamp Rich? My money is on cooking

Sounds like the poor thing cooked :(

It does sound like the poor thing over heated. Gosh thats awful. Oh man.


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I dont know about it over heating. According to the post It seems they just took a tub with water and placed it the enclosure the snake was being kept. Water will only get as hot as its surroundings and at a very slow pace do to its very high specific heat. Therefore, if the snake was surviving in the enclosure it should be able to survive in a tub of water that was inside the enclosure. My guess is it breathed in water.

EDIT: By surroundings I mean the temp it is being heated to. So if the temp between the heat pad and the light is 100 F than the water wont get any hotter than that.

He said it was on a heat pad and under a heat lamp. If it was on a heat pad, most aren't controlled by a thermostat so their is no telling how hot it got, and how close was the lamp to the snake? Was it directly on top of the screen? They most likely over-heated the poor snake, and 22 minutes is a LONG time.

What I usaully do is get a plastic bowl and put about an 1 1/2 of warm water and put it in the enclosure and let him/her soak as they please. It has worked out quite well for me.