Life Hack for Giant Snakes

[bcr229]

tl;dr A child's sleeping bag is great for holding your giant snakes during enclosure cleaning.

I feel like a twit for not coming up with this idea sooner, but as they say, necessity is the mother of invention.

A few of my adult retics are housed in large enclosures on the first floor because the enclosures are just too big to be moved upstairs. Typically when these guys need cleaning it's a two person job, one to clean, and one to keep an eye on the snake as it is loose on the first floor (we kick the dogs out in the back yard or lock them in a bedroom during this time). Sure you can try - TRY - to stuff it into a VE-175 tub temporarily to secure it while you clean, but it's not easy.

Also, you'd think that an adult giant python would be happy just cruising around, glad for the chance to stretch out and roam a bit. Nope, they get into, under, or behind everything, because they want to hide behind the toilet, or behind the piano, or under the couch. In that respect they are no different than ball pythons.

So I figure... give the snake a secure place to hide for a few minutes and it will stay put and be happy. But what to use? No one makes snake bags that big, and even a king-sized pillow case is too small.

And then while cleaning out my daughter's room it hit me - her old sleeping bag. She has outgrown it and I was going to give it away, but I figured why not at least try to see if the retics would use it? So, it was put to the test today and I couldn't be happier. All three adult retics practically raced into the "cave" I created at the opening, they stayed calm and even more importantly they stayed put voluntarily through the cleaning process, and when I was done I simply unzipped it to open it, pointed the snake's nose back into its enclosure, and guided the snake back into its home. It also meant that two of us could work simultaneously which made the job go a lot faster.