Do your BPs like baths?

[Skiploder]

Today, I took Monty, my BP, out and noticed he was a little chilly. I remembered reading somewhere that snakes like to swim so I put an inch or two of warm water in the bathtub, gave him a place to slither up onto if he didn't like it, and placed him gently in the tub. He absolutely seemed to love it. He swam around the tub like it was the best 5 minutes of his life. My question is, if he does indeed like this, how often is okay to let him swim? I don't want him getting stressed out, but he seems to enjoy it and its a good way to warm him up!

Ball pythons are fairly sedentary animals. Except for feeding and roaming about looking for other ball pythons to have sex with, they choose to remain in a den or a hide.

There are several reasons for this and they are all biological.

We don't know if any snake "likes" to swim. We can ASSume that they do not. What we do know is that they do not do things for fun and that their biological imperatives center around conserving energy, making more snakes and limiting opportunities for other creatures to harm them.

Some snakes are aquatic, some snakes will take to water to hunt, and some snakes will swim as part of their normal travels. The purpose of these travels are too seek mates, to find prey or to find suitable den sites...not for exercise, relaxation or any other form of perceived happiness.

In the end, it's your snake and you can do anything you want to it. However your goal as a keeper should be to minimize stress.

When you place a ball python in a tub and he swims around for 5 minutes, keep in mind that being in motion = an indication of stress for a ball python...not the opposite. He is moving in an attempt to get somewhere where he doesn't have to move...out of the water. Ball pythons move only for specific reasons and a recreational swim is not one of them.

You can do lots of things with your snake, you can keep him in several ways. Whether in a tank or a tub, whether with a heat lamp or a heat pad, as long as you meet his husbandry requirements, you are doing okay by him.

However, you need to pay attention to signs of stress. In a ball python, one of those signs is restless behavior. A happy ball python is one that spends most of it's time feeling secure in a hide. A happy ball python is not one that is swimming (either frantically or lackadaisically) in the tub.

Again, your snake shows signs of contentment in several ways. One of them is to find a secure and happy place and then move as little as possible. In other words, you should probably change your assessment of what makes him happy.

I guess the question I have for you is: How do you know he likes it? What behavioral clues are you focusing on?