Bathing your BP

I was thinking about letting my boy splash around :D in the tub for a bit, but my question is what should the water temp be?

That's more likely to stress your snake than anything. The only time this is really needed is when the snake has made a huge mess of himself in the enclosure or to help with a bad shed.

Don't bath your Ball Python. If its dirty, just clean it with a damp towel.

Good to know, I thought they enjoyed it good thing I asked :) Being new to BP's is hard LOL

Yeah, we tried that with our first bp. Fail. And we almost got bit. Snake got on the water hated it and tried to escape, fall, escape, fall... stressed the poor gal out before we finally managed to grab the snake and put her back in her enclosure.

If the bp needs a bath (stuck shed, poop all over, mites, etc.) it's better to put him in a tupperware filled with water so that the snake can ball up in there with its head above the water with the lid on. Water temp around 90. Remember, when you put your hand in your armpits, that's around 98 degrees.

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Originally Posted by Monty the BP

Good to know, I thought they enjoyed it good thing I asked :) Being new to BP's is hard LOL

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Haha, it is very hard! But, there are so many people here to help.

Ball pythons aren't really known for soaking unless their husbandry is off.

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Originally Posted by Monty the BP

I was thinking about letting my boy splash around :D in the tub for a bit, but my question is what should the water temp be?

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The question is why would you bath your BP?

Causing unnecessary stress is not a good idea.

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Originally Posted by Monty the BP

Good to know, I thought they enjoyed it good thing I asked :) Being new to BP's is hard LOL

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Not really,lol..he's my first for a month and it couldn't be any easier

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Originally Posted by NYHC4LIFE8899

Not really,lol..he's my first for a month and it couldn't be any easier

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:/ Do we really need to make a new person feel unwelcome? That's not very cool. They were corrected on what they thought they knew. They came here to learn, not to have people be rude to them.

When I got my first snake, even with researching for a month or two before buying him, it was still very different than dogs, horses, and fish that I've had. It was a big learning curve and lot to take in at once.

is it really that bad and stressful for a BP?

i mean, they are quite adept at swimming and quite fast and can even hold their breath and dive. in nature, they cross ponds and rivers.

i am reminded of that funny picture of an escaped BP caught hiding underwater in a fish bowl watching a gold fish from below. and in all of the footage ive seen pythons just seem to hang out and relax and swim around calmly in water. if they really freak out, maybe the water was too warm?

of course, why do it if its unnecessary, but when you do it for example to drown mites, they seem to generally be totally fine with it.

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

is it really that bad and stressful for a BP?

i mean, they are quite adept at swimming and quite fast and can even hold their breath and dive. in nature, they cross ponds and rivers.

i am reminded of that funny picture of an escaped BP caught hiding underwater in a fish bowl watching a gold fish from below. and in all of the footage ive seen pythons just seem to hang out and relax and swim around calmly in water. if they really freak out, maybe the water was too warm?

of course, why do it if its unnecessary, but when you do it for example to drown mites, they seem to generally be totally fine with it.

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Okay, when we even have debates around here about the merits of moving a snake to a feeding tub to eat because it causes them to have undue stress, putting a snake in a tub with water would be even worse than that. They are not the easiest creature to get used to something.

And saying "generally they are totally fine with it" is guesswork at best because bp's can't tell you "I wish I could beat the crap out of you right now but I got no other choice so I just have to chillax it right here on this stupid water". In any case, I have 6 snakes that I've put in a bath at least once out of poop-stink, and every single one of them try to get out of the tupperware the minute their tail hit the water. At 90 degrees. Measured with a cooking thermometer. Of course, this is just anecdotal, so not sure how other's bp's do.

But yes, my very first bp soaked in her water bowl on her own free choice when I first got her. She had mites. So, they do seek water if they need it.

no offence, just a suggestion...

maybe 90 degrees is too much? when i take a shower, i cannot stand 90 degrees for too long. its bordering on uncomfortably warm. lukewarm water, for me, would be around 70 degrees. and im warm blooded. have you only tried water at precisely 90 degrees so far?

i just searched for python bathing/soaking and watched a large amount of videos and most seem to hang out or explore, some move faster, but no freakouts.

i mean, it often looks like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h6gZK10WX4
and that doesnt look particularly stressful

and yes, no disagreement, its against dirt or smell or mites or to help shed and not just for fun. its just about stress levels.

I was told to bathe them at 85*F, 90*F would be too warm. The only one I had to bathe regularly came to me with a lot of stuck shed, multiple retained eyecaps, etc. He did flail around a lot at first but after the first few sessions (15 minutes in a tub per session) he would just relax and float around immediately when it was bath time. So, either he figured out it was no big deal and he wasn't going to die a horrid drowning death, or maybe it felt pretty good in his "spa" after living in a fish tank in a cool, dry house with no heat or added humidity for most of his life. That then begs the question - is it better to bathe your BP periodically so that it learns that getting a bath is no big deal, so that if you have to do it in an emergency, e.g. treating a burn or scale rot, or to deal with mites, you're not adding more stress to the situation? Obviously if your husbandry is spot-on there shouldn't be a need for it, but we're human and stuff does happen.