holding rodents and then snakes...

[recycling goddess]

i have a question... how do your snakes react to you after you've been holding your rats or mice?

since we consider our females rats pets, rather than food... we want to spend time with them daily.

i wash my hands but since the rats climb all over me, will dexter be in 'eat' mode the entire time i'm holding him?

[Jeanne]

I always wash after handling any rodents in my house, and b/c they do crawl all over me, I change my shirt before handling snakes also.

[Smulkin]

I always try to deal with snakes first to avoid the errant tag - whether its holding/cleaning or just changing their water or feeding them.

I was holding our son's kingsnake once shortly after having handled some of our BPs (up on the shoulders etc) and the little sucker bit me right on the neck, so I don't underestimate any herp's ability to get keen on trace odors lol.

[recycling goddess]

whew... i'm glad i asked cause i was worried about getting tagged... and yet i thought... oh it's probably not a big deal.

so, i'll be sure to change (and of course i wash after holding any critter) between cuddles!

anyone else have any stories to tell?

[Shelby]

I have a story!

I used to work at Serpent Safari reptile zoo. I would hold either a burm or BCI out in the hall at the mall and talk to people and they'd take pictures with the snake. I was also a tour guide.

Anyway, one day I was counting the frozen rodent inventory and instead of going over to the restaurant to wash my hands, I was lazy and I just used some hand sanitizer.

Not a good idea.

So I take the snake out there (8' albino burmese python) and a group of brownies comes over to see the snake. 'can I pet him, is he nice?' one little girl asks. 'oh yeah he's super tame, never bit anyone!'

*chomp* wow what an inopportune moment for the snake to latch onto my hand! So I discreetly as possible leave the little girls (not before one asks 'is he biting her?') and I go to the assistant manager on duty and said 'the snake has bitten me' He was a bit surprised to say the least and he was frantically trying to figure out how to get this snake to let go of me. There was a bottle of water on the shelf and he dumped it in the snake's face, but that only made him clamp down harder on my hand!

So he told me to go in the back room and get the owner to help me. I walked back there and told him 'the burm bit me!' and he drops whatever he was doing and runs over. First he tried squeezing the snake's head behind the jaws to try to get him to let go.. but no, that burm wasn't giving up his prize so easily!

Unfortunately he had to spray windex in the snake's mouth to get him to let go.. I'll never forget seeing the poor snake open his mouth in pain. I felt very bad..

So I had a pretty bite mark with 40 tooth holes in my hand. Bad thing was I had to work with a huge bandage on my hand the rest of the day. (the questions I got from customers were hard to avoid.. lol)

So that's your lesson.. wash your hands!

[reptile-girl]

man, was the snake ok from the windex?

[Shelby]

To tell you the truth, I never saw the snake again. I hope it is ok, Sammy really was a good boy..

[recycling goddess]

my kids are all sitting here with their mouths hanging open and my son said, "oh okay, so that's scary" and left the room... we won't be holding the snake after the rats anymore!

[Shelby]

Haha.. sorry kids! It really didn't hurt much.

[mr~python]

i have a quick story. gather round kids! one time i was feeding nessa (and ofcourse i had been handling the rat), i had my hand near her because i was watching her and as soon as she had slurped down the tail she nailed me right on the index and middle finger. she held on and started to wrap around me so i grabbed the back of her neck and she came off pretty easy.