Snake Bath

[debrisofamemory]

Hey!

My bp is my first reptile, so I wanted to consult others on one of her bath habits. When I put Pidge in the bath, she gets suuuuuper nervous and start swimming and acting crazily. When I put my hand in, she wraps herself around me and immediately becomes calm. It's not an issue of her not liking the water, she just wants to hold on. Should I get her something that I can put in the bath with her, or should I continue using my hand?

A second habit she has, is she rubs her face against the wall of the bath. My mom thinks it's because she can see her own reflection on the bin, but I'm not convinced. She went to the vet not too long ago and they said she was perfectly healthy. Should I just get a different and less opaque bin?

Thanks!
Chris

[Kcl]

Your bp doesn't need baths and would likely much prefer if you'd just skip it. Baths are basically limited to an option if they have stuck shed, are constipated, or covered in their own poop. You can provide a bowl big enough to soak in. Some individuals will do so occasionally, many won't. I've had to bathe mine twice in the last year and a half. He was not pleased either time.

[cletus]

Bathing or soaking is very stressful. She was probably freaking out more than anything.

[Oxylepy]

I regularly break with common suggestions and do bathe my reptiles, so unlike many I have seen the various behaviors illicited by baths.

First off, bathing is stressful. Ball pythons, in particular, do not enjoy the experience. Some monitor species love it, but often treat it as a means of escaping you. Ball pythons do not enjoy it, they treat it as a way to escape you, and then cannot escape the bath, they then cling to you because you are one of the only stable surfaces they can escape drowning from.

Water temperature matters A LOT. If the temperature feels like a hot tub, the water can quickly kill your snake. If it feels warm, it's still probably too warm. If you temp it to 80 degrees, you're probably fine on temps. I already know what 74-80 degrees feels like from my Mangrove Monitor's swimming area, but unless you have a lot of experience of what the right temperature feels like, temp it. Keep it on the low to medium side of BP ambient temps. If it's hot spot temperature it's too high.

A snake in too high of temperatures will freak out very quickly and try to escape to save its life.

Depth matters a lot. If your snake is floating in the water, it's too high. In fact if you want to force swimming, too deep is how it is done. You really don't want the water ever sbove 3/4ths the snake's depth. If it is, the snake will swim and probably panic.

What you want to see if your snake is in the water is for it to travel around without freaking out. To do that you need comfortable temperatures and not too deep of water.

Now, bathes can be used as a means to get your snake to poop, to clean poop off your snake, to wash your snake because you need to treat something like scale rot or a cut, as exercise (bad decision for BPs), or to help with shedding.

It is advised by the forum as a whole, as well as myself, to NOT bathe your snake.

Edit: Temperatures are degrees F, just so you aren't putting a snake in 80C -_-

[predatorkeeper87]

just don't bathe the snake unless absolutely needed for something like a stuck shed or as stated above cleaning the animal off due to injury/infection.

[GoingPostal]

Stop bathing it. There's no reason to and you are stressing it out. A wet washcloth or pillowcase would work great if needed although in a decade I've needed to wash or scrub my ball python zero times.


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[Craiga 01453]

No need to bathe your BP. Some snakes don't mind the occasional swim, but BPs generally do NOT enjoy it.

As for her behavior when you put her in the water, she probably hates it and latches on to you to feel secure. or...
the water temp is uncomfortable for her and she wraps around your arm for whatever comfortable temps she can find.
My guess is it's a combination of the two.

[Zincubus]

Just to play Devils Advocate here - I'm kinda unconvinced about a few of the supposed concerns raised in the above posts ...

As I've mentioned a few times elsewhere , here in the uk giving your Royal / Ball python a short , shallow soak in 82F water is seen as acceptable - as long as it's just a very , very occasionally dip , to either loosen a stubborn shed / eye caps or to rehydrate if the snake is showing obvious signs of dehydration .

If you put your snake in an empty tub it's gonna try to endlessly to get out of every corner so that's not trying to escape drowning is it ?? Plus there are so many accounts of snakes clearly loving to swim in baths and the others who chose to soak endlessly in their water bowls .... also can't they hold their breath under water for about 30 minutes or something ??!??




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[Kcl]

I don't really see much in the way of people saying it's not acceptable when you want to fix a stuck shed or need to help a dehydrated snake. Just that it sounds like these baths are recreational and the vast majority of BPs aren't into that and it sounds like her snake is among the majority. Thus the best route is for her to just stop putting her snake in the bath and give it a big enough waterbowl if she really wants.

I actually do give my garter snakes occasional baths for exercise (~1/month or less). However, they are semi-aquatic naturally, so I feel it's a different proposition. One likes it(Zato), one ranges from indifferent to slightly displeased (Hazama), and one seems to range from slightly displeased to very displeased (Relius). I actually did so yesterday while I cleaned and Relius actually had to be taken out after a minute because he was distinctly unhappy. Zato kind of floats around calmly and Hazama mostly sits on what I put in there for them to rest on, but will climb on hands when he's more displeased about the bath.

Ball pythons just aren't really into swimming as a species. I feel like it's a bit like bathing a cat - a very few like it, but 90%+ are just going to be upset so you really should have a good reason to do it.

[JodanOrNoDan]

LOL. Everyone knows what I think. I think Deb said it best. It is not an anaconda. A ball python's idea of recreation is laying around with an occasional tongue flick.