Bathing a BP

[Emily Hubbard]

as a general rule, balls are not given to soaking themselves. if I found one of mine doing so, I'd take it as a sign to check my temperatures and husbandry.

My temps are perfect. I check them every day. I had a recent mite problem, but she has soaked since the day I got her, long before the mites, and continues to when she feels like it now that the mites are gone. I just think a broad generalization that if someone has a snake that enjoys soaking, then they have bad husbandry is pretty narrow minded. My snake likes to soak because she does, and many other people have snakes with the same quirk. Yes, it CAN be a sign of temps too high or mites. But if both of those are ruled out and the snake still soaks, that is fine.

To the OP, all of this to say that if your snake wants to soak, it will do so voluntarily. You do not need to force a bath on it unless it crawls through poo or has a bad shed. You don't need to soak before a shed, only once it has already gone wrong.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

My temps are perfect. I check them every day. I had a recent mite problem, but she has soaked since the day I got her, long before the mites, and continues to when she feels like it now that the mites are gone. I just think a broad generalization that if someone has a snake that enjoys soaking, then they have bad husbandry is pretty narrow minded. My snake likes to soak because she does, and many other people have snakes with the same quirk. Yes, it CAN be a sign of temps too high or mites. But if both of those are ruled out and the snake still soaks, that is fine.

To the OP, all of this to say that if your snake wants to soak, it will do so voluntarily. You do not need to force a bath on it unless it crawls through poo or has a bad shed. You don't need to soak before a shed, only once it has already gone wrong.

In your case this would be an exception to the rule but it is based on a single animal that you have own I would guess less than a few years.

Many people have multiple animals and as a generality BP rarely soak.

I can tell you that in the years I have been keeping BP I have rarely have seen them soak, some females will when breeding but even than not many of them do in my case, I also have seen BP in my collection soak when too large of a meal is being offered.

While many caresheets mention having a bowl large enough to soak in the truth is that they rarely do and more often than not they do because of husbandry issues whether is it low humidity, high temps or lack of security.

You can’t based your opinion on your one exception