Pooing on me!

My little corn seems to have taken to pooing on me. She hardly ever does it in her vivarium, I'm sure she waits until I've picked her up to, erm, let it all out. I know that this can be a defence mechanism, but I really don't think she gets stressed out by being handled. She usually poos when I've had her out for about 10 minutes and she has had a good old slither around. Are there any reasons other than stress that might make her do this?

Lol. snakes will often poo while they are active. Perhaps you could try taking her out of her hide, and let her crawl around her viv. for ten minutes before handling her. Iv also heard that soaking your snake in a little warm water can also make your snake poo. After feeding, leave your snake for 36 hours before handling.

yeah it can be the physical movement of handling that gets the digestive juices flowing , you can always avoid this by leaving off on the handling untill you've seen a poop.

Also you may want to not put down your corn when it poops on you. Although you may think your snake isn't stressed and it probably isn't, the best any snake can do is tolerate handling, nothing more, so if its associated pooing with being put back in the viv and left alone its likely to keep doing it, pavlovian associations i believe there called. So basically if he poops, don't put him back straight away, thats my opinions anyways

Tom

Ha ha, yes, that would be classical conditioning. I do tend to put her straight back after she's done it, but only in an attempt to stem the flow of poo from my clothes onto the furniture. She does do a lot for a little snake. Perhaps I'll put an old towel over my lap the next time I handle her so that she can poo on that instead of on me.

LouiseB Pooing on me!

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My little corn seems to have taken to pooing on me. She hardly ever does it in her vivarium, I'm sure she waits until I've picked her up to, erm, let it all out. I know that this can be a defence mechanism, but I really don't think she gets stressed out by being handled. She usually poos when I've had her out for about 10 minutes and she has had a good old slither around. Are there any reasons other than stress that might make her do this?

Newspaper works well too

Ooops that should be LouiseB's second post in quote tags, not the first,

For our Cheerio it's noticeable when she "has a load ready". If we want her out we handle her near the vinyl floor, or outside if it's nice, until she...uh...unloads.
Handling her always gets her goin'.
I'm glad we don't put her back afterwards, as I did not think about the conditioning angle of it. Thanks for that, Tom.

No probs Alan, I'll share my snake poo'ing behaviour advice with anyone who'll listen

Tom

Ha! Funny, you didn't seem so full of poo to me.

heh.

I've gotten to know my snakes kind of well, I can guess when they're going to poo (and even kind of see it if they're full) so I usually take them to the bathroom, put a little warm water in the sink, and let them have a good slither in an area that's easy to clean. It keeps them form pooing on me, and keeps they viv's, uh, fresher.