why? WHY??

[rubberduck]

BPSnakelady yes that's exactly what I'm thinking

probably it's this scenting territory for feeling more comfortable...what i don't understand is that it doesn't fit to the whole idea of cleaning/changing tubs for problem feeders. if the tub represents a new snake-free hide, then the snake should wait for the rodent without producing odours that could warn the rodent, then eat it and poo/pee before searching for another hide. Does the idea and my english make any sense?

i'm sorry but i don't change it immediately...i recently changed to corrugated paper which absorbs a lot and dries in a couple of hours. if they poop i will.

[Albert Clark]

Garter snakes are notorious for this! Trust me, they are the species that does it routinely! Lol. Yes, I think scent marking new territory has a part in it.

[Skiploder]

Studies outlined in the book "The Health and Welfare of Captive Reptiles" looks in depth at this behavior. It is noted in not only snakes, but lizards. There are several reasons why this happens.

In the studies, the defecation was wholly dependent on the whether soiled objects were left in the enclosure or whether it was completely and thoroughly cleaned. The latency and frequency of defecation was noted and was found to be related to an absence of chemical cues. It occurred equally in new acquisitions and in long term captives.

If small soiled stones or bits of bedding were left in the enclosures, no defecation behavior was noted. In other words, the behavior can be mitigated by leaving familiar scent clues in the cage.

The conclusions pointed at several behavioral culprits:

(1) For a lack of a better word, scent marking.

(2) Increased metabolic activity due to measured increases in cortisol levels due to the combined stresses of unfamiliar scents and handling. Remember, even in habituated animals, measurable increases in cortisol levels were noted after even short handling sessions. Cortisol in humans is a believed aggravator of IBS.

(3) "Emotional Fever". A phenomenon in which an animal has a fever response to handling. This means that some snakes would elevated their baseline temperatures by up to 6 degrees Celsius after handling sessions. The reason is unknown, but the behavior has been noted in snakes, lizards and even mammals.

(4) There is a separate school of thought that deals with how snakes perceive their environment. The theory is that the cues left by cleaning agents rob the animal of it's ability to perceive the enclosure as home. They are unfamiliar and induce elevated stress levels. Researchers were able to curtail this behavior by making sure traces of novel scents were in the cages at all times. Therefore, once the odor was deemed as a natural part of their home, the defecation response to cleaning ceased.

Keep in mind that these same set of studies showed that snakes can tell the difference between their own feces and those of conspecifics.

In short, they look for familiar chemical cues. Whether this is to mark territory or is a process in which familiar scents are a function of their perception of the environment would probably depend on the species and the sex of the animal.

If you don't like the behavior, acclimate the animal to the scent of your cleaner.

[BPSnakeLady]

Interesting.


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[Daigga]

Fascinating. I've always known the trick to getting aything to poo was to give their home a good and thorough cleaning, but never quite knew why. Kind of figured it was just a kind of "screw you" response, especially since I first learned that trick with my cats. Couldn't even leave a bag of litter open around them...

[Running Elk]

Why do they have to pee the moment i put them in a clean freshly lined cage?

Is it standard practice? Is it like a genetically imprinted trait to punish us?

Sorry for the rant. I love my snakes but i was rubbing for an hour! Do yours do that? What should i do?

It could be worse. They could pee on you instead.

[Jhill001]

Wow Skiploder this is really interesting. I wonder if thats why snakes are sometimes a little hesitant about new cage furniture.

What kind of lizard species were mentioned?

[Skiploder]

Wow Skiploder this is really interesting. I wonder if thats why snakes are sometimes a little hesitant about new cage furniture.

What kind of lizard species were mentioned?

Phrynosoma Cornutum (Texas Horned Lizards) were specifically mentioned,

References were made to other studies involving other species.

Something to keep in mind...

The stress of acclimation - specifically introducing a captive snake to a new environment - has been observed to last an average of 21 days. Again, this stress is quantified by measuring cortisol levels in the animal.

Presumably, that 21 days is how long it takes for the snake to accept spatial and chemical cues and, for lack of a better term. "make peace" with them.

When you clean an enclosure, you may alter both cues that the animal used to acclimate itself to it's "home". You may remove all of the chemical cues by cleaning and if you rearrange or replace the furniture you alter the spatial ones.

You introduce new chemical cues that are transient and which the snake never really adapts to (the scent of the cleaner).

As with any husbandry operation, the key is to make things as stress free as possible. If you use a cleaner like F10, even using it for spot cleaning may not give the animal enough time to register it as a chemical cue that's part of their environment. The experiments showed that if you kept something with a trace of that chemical clue in the enclosure for a period of time, the cleaner would not induce a defecation response.

None of this is new. Many of these studies go back to the 1970s.

[artgecko]

Huh.. Interesting information. I will have to consider this the next time I clean tubs.

[Jhill001]

I'd have read the study if the book wasn't 180 bucks or 120 for a dang E-book. I wonder if these people ever thought about lowering these things to like 40 bucks how many people would actually buy them. Especially for a book published 13-14 years ago.