bathing?

[Ruth89]

So one of my friends has a couple corn snakes and she bathes them... is that something that I should be doing? I have had my little Jasper for about a month and haven't felt like it was needed. But today I noticed that the skin around his face is starting to look really dry. Does that mean he is going to shed soon?

 

[Bartholomew]

I dont know what you mean by 'dry' but, there are definite sighns of shedding when the snakes body color 'dulls' out and its eyes become a milky blue color. Or it is just constantly hiding, (more than it usually does)
As of bathing, you dont have to. But if your snake smells, for whatever reason, you should wash his whole body (trying to avoid the face) with mild soap. And everything should be ok.

 

[Ruth89]

well dry in such a way that his skin looks flaky around his eyes.

 

[dickdeuel]

You don't have to bathe your snake. Just give him a humid hide and the snake will be fine.

 

[Ruth89]

mkay, thanks! As I was handling him today, I noticed that he has a small patch of skin left from his last shed. Will that come off in his next one?

 

[bitsy]

I've never bathed a snake in 19 years and they seem to be OK with it.

Ideally you should get that patch of old skin off. The scales over the eyes or the tip of the tail are the most important things to deal with, but even a small patch on the body could harbour bacteria and make the next shed more difficult. The fact that he's looking flaky around the eyes rings a bit of an alarm bell that he might have retaned eye caps from the last shed as well.

I'd agree with Dick - put a humid hide in with him now and see if that helps with both the old patch of skin and that flakiness around his eyes.

 

[Ruth89]

thanks for the advice guys!

 

[Kuzco]

I do bath a couple times a year, but just as needed. I find my males in particular can get rather musky and I do it just to dull the smell down. But no, there is no need for you to bath your snake.

First off they shed their entire top layer of skin so thats a pretty good refresher for them. If the shed is not coming off in pretty much one piece than you need to either increase the humidity if you can or get the snake wet, its not good to have large chunks of unshed skin left on them.

Secondly if a snake feels a need to get wet (too hot, mites, etc) they will, if you have a large enough water bowl, go for an extended dip in the water bowl.

 

[Kuzco]

I should note that most snakes do NOT like getting a bath and it's stressful for them so be picky on if and how often you bathe. (them)

 

[WingedSweetheart]

All my snakes seem to hate water. I only ran them under the tap real fast a few times before when they happened to get something on them like dirt, blood from food, or poop. My hateling bit me when I did that to her.

 

[Kuzco]

yea, most mine seem to deal with still water much better than running.

 

[SnakeAround]

Having them slither through a wet bathing cloth does the cleaning trick too. It does not stress them out.

 

[Ruth89]

That makes sense. My friend who bathed her normal was struck at a lot. I told her that maybe its because she named her Naigini...evil name, evil snake lol.

 

[EsotericForest]

I've never really encountered the need to actually bathe my corn snake. The only main reason I would see a need is to help with a poor shed...but that isn't exactly a bath in my eyes.

 

[charlie1]

I bath my corn when I do a complete cage cleaning--about once per month. I put a small drop of dish soap in my had and and wet it with luke warm water. I then let the snake slither through it avoiding his head. I then just run him under the tap. I have noticed he seems to like the cool tap water running over him as he will actively seek out the water with his face and stick it in it. I then dry him by letting him slither through a dry paper towel.