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Moving the snakes

C

Cyberduke

New member
Hi, after having my snakes in the house for a month now my parents complained that they stink and they insist that I should move them.

Now the problem is where????

1. Our "shower" room- A room outside our house, very humid and hot(around 40 degrees Celsius average in summer)

2. Outside - also very hot and I don't think a good idea

3. Our "tool" room - A smelly, Hot and dusty room.

4. A semi-outside room - A room with walls only 80% high, and hot

What are all the factors that I should consider? And please advise on this possible locations.
 
Why do they smell? Aren't you picking up the poo right away? Do you have aspen bedding for them? I don't see how they can have any odor.
 
Well 40C is 104F and if the snake can't escape to a cooler zone it's likely to be in danger if the temp stays constant for any length of time. I'd see 90F or 32C as the absolute maximum they can safely tolerate and that only for a short time. Risks of over-heating include failure to digest properly, regurge, refusal to feed, neurological damage or even death.

It needs to be somewhere that stays around the mid-80sF or 30F. Ideally it needs to be cooler, so that you can provide a temperature gradient from the low 70sF or 22C.

It doesn't sound like any of the locations available to you, will be cool enough.
 
How many do you have, just out of curiousity? I can't smell anything with mine. I could when my yearling pooped but I cleaned it out and no more stink.

It's weird they are saying they can smell them, I think.

I'm agreeing with Bitsy, none of your options sound very good unfortunately. What kind of enclosure? Maybe a different enclosure would reduce the supposed odor? Other than that, I don't know.
 
I agree, they have no odor unless they need cleaned.

Do your parents like the snakes?
Sounds like they are wanting them gone.

If those were my only options, I would rehome them. Those temps are too hot...
How about you own room?
 
Agreed that none of your options sound good. All are way too hot...

Also agreed that it sounds off that your parents claim they stink... When I got into snakes, my grandmother, the most nit-picky, opinionated person I know, complained that they were going to make the house smell. 10 or so snakes later, she finally admitted she still couldn't smell anything, even walking into the snake room... They really don't have a smell if maintained (cleaned, etc) correctly...

Making room in your own bedroom, as was already suggested, is probably your best bet. That way they'll still be in the air-conditioned house, but out of your parents' living areas, so they can't complain about them stinking up the house.
 
Cyberduke said:
Hi, after having my snakes in the house for a month now my parents complained that they stink and they insist that I should move them.

Now the problem is where????

1. Our "shower" room- A room outside our house, very humid and hot(around 40 degrees Celsius average in summer)

2. Outside - also very hot and I don't think a good idea

3. Our "tool" room - A smelly, Hot and dusty room.

4. A semi-outside room - A room with walls only 80% high, and hot

What are all the factors that I should consider? And please advise on this possible locations.
Click to expand...

5. Parents bedroom
 
I also don't smell snakes. My ball python has some gnarly bowel movements, but that is the only critter I can smell. Talk to my teacher at school? She swears that snakes are "STANKAY!" I don't understand it. My parents don't smell my snakes either. Just buy them an airfreshener haha.
 
How about your room? I would hope the parents would be understanding and caring enough to let you use your own bedroom space how you want. And like everyone else has been saying, it does seem weird that your parents can smell the snakes. If you keep them on aspen and clean up poop, there really shouldn't be any odor at all usually. I have noticed my snake and viv smelling a bit these days, but I have been trying to get my stubborn hatchling to eat bloody gorey pinky parts and not stressing him out with a bath after. Maybe try bathing your snakes after they poop? I cover my viv with T shirts to give my snake more security and also keep the heat in, and it has the added advantage of keeping the smell in, but even without the T shirts I don't smell anything in the room, unless I go stick my face over the viv.

But I know, convincing irrational parents with unreasonable requests isn't always that easy. I hope they will let you continue housing your snakes in the house with acceptable temperatures and humidity, and maybe trying various odor controlling techniques will help. If they are uncompromising, it is probably better to rehome the snakes (and yourself eventually when possible) than put them in 90F+ conditions that will cause them health problems.

A lot of times smell is psychological for people. If they happen to not like the snakes or are afraid or something, they could well be smelling something that does not exist. In that case, maybe it would help if they can't see the snake or vivarium? If you use aspen, is it the aspen smell they dislike and have they associated it with the snakes? Maybe, if it is an emotional thing, "switching" brands or kinds of bedding and telling your parents all about how the new kind is great for odor control (which aspen is), will help.

I'm still living with my parents too, and there can be lots of friction at times, especially about my snake and its feeding. My mom is the least fond of snakes, but my dad is the most afraid of germs and squicked out by the frozen mice. Honestly, my best hope is to move out as soon as I find an affordable place, but in the meantime I've found a few ways to cope. My snake stays in my room, and I try to minimize conflict about it. I usually feed after they go to sleep, and I do extra dishes and cleaning around those times so they'll associate positive things. Then I get annoyed at the double standards, bite my tongue, and go to apartment websites, but that's a different story.

Good luck to you and I hope you work it out!
 
Parents can be so annoying! I'm 46 and still don't want to tell my mom stuff I do, like getting my snakes. She doesn't dislike snakes she just thinks I'll have them for a while and be tired of them. My son was lucky b/c when he wanted a lizard, I did research and we got a bearded dragon who eventually became mine when Nick got tired of it, which I knew would happen. Fortunately I love all animals, he was lucky.

I hope they will cooperate with you too. It's hard when the parents are running the show with your pets. I have to wonder as well if they really just don't like the snakes and this is an excuse. It really doesn't matter though in the long run I suppose.

good luck with them!
 
Cyberduke, you mentioned in another section of the forum about separating the 1 female from the 2 males. Are the 2 Males in the same cage at this point? If So, I can understand that they might "smell" a bit.

Could you give up exact details of your snakes conditions?
 
Well first of all me and my parents have reached and agreement that I can keep the snakes where they are for now. I have cleaned both the cages and they stopped complaining about the smell.

And another thing....Do you have any tips of keeping the cages cool? The temrurue outside reaches today 45 degrees celcuis and around 30 in the viv. The viv is all wood exept the front is made of glass doors.

ps. I am 15 and have no choise of living with my parents lol
 
Oh and my room is also out of the question because it is also a very hot room.

ps. sorry for all the language/spelling mistakes, English in not my first language.
 
It's always better to ask the questions than hurt the snake so don't feel like an idiot. Do you have air conditioning in the home or is it just cooled with fans, etc? I'm not sure about Graaff Reinet, but I had friends that lived in South Africa and they did not have central air conditioning. If that is the case, you want to find a room that stays as close to 21-22°C with a max of 29-29.5°C. Also, if there isn't that option, you may want to look at more open cages that would allow better airflow to keep it cooler such as one with a wire mesh top. Another thing, it will be cooler on the floor than a tiered cage would allow. If you have wooden cages stacked on top of one another, the upper cage will be much warmer than the lower one. To give you an idea, in an air conditioned house, I incubated eggs about a foot from the ceiling. Simply by turning the room's fan on, it would drop the temperature by 3-4°C. Sometimes, that's all it takes. It was also 27-28°C by the ceiling and 23°C on the floor. Hope this helps.
 
Glad to hear an agreement was reached!

On keeping the cages cool, the amount of ventilation has a lot to do with that... To give an example, I covered most of the ventilation on my leopard tortoise's enclosure to hold in all the heat from his bulbs.. Because I did that, his entire viv now stays around 10-15*F (5-8*C) warmer than the air around it just from one heat bulb. The same concept works in opposite... If you can increase the ventilation, say cut out a piece of the side or back of the viv and cover it with screening or drill a bunch of air holes, it will help keep the cage from holding all that heat in by giving the hot air a place to go out, and the cool air a place to come in...

I'm sure there's much more sensible, nice-looking ways to increase the ventilation on your vivs than the hack-job ideas that come to mind for me, lol, you just have to plan things out to come up with a good way. :)

On days like that, too, if your heat sources aren't already controlled by thermostats (where they'd automatically turn off when the cage is already that warm), it helps to turn them off to stop any extra heat going into the viv.

And, like Dracoluna said, just putting the vivs on the floor will help keep them cooler since heat rises.
 
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