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Snake hygiene

Koallaa3D

Koallaa3D

New member
Hi, I havent come across this subject (snake hygiene) on any forums so I thought I'll find out what people think about it.

Snakes or any other living thing get dirty from their own feces, dust any other bacteria in the tank go on the snake and cause infections and bad smells.

I am an owner of bearded dragons and many times accidentally their fece stuck to their legs or tail. Making me have to wash it off.

Even condensing water in the vivarium can decrease a good hygiene in a snake and cause them to become sticky and smelly.

Personally I think keep good hygiene in reptiles is crucial. But not only keeping the vivarium itself clean by changing aspen, water every day and disenfecting the decoration and the viv. But it's also important to keep the reptile itself clean. It's like humans; if you cleaned everything around you your bed, floor, room etc but didn't clean yourself. For example you just cleaned your house, and then went to work in the garden came back in covered in mud, your house would be dirty again. So the point I'm trying to make is many owners focus on cleaning the viv etc but not the snake.

I'm not saying that now you have to wash your snake everyday but even washing your snake in a bowel of warm water and letting him just swim around for a bit ( remember not too much water just a little bit on the base of the bowel) will make a massive difference in your snakes health.

I also heard that some people place the snake in a wet cotton bag and leave him there for 5 mins allowing him to wash off the dirt.

These are just my views and reasearch, what do you think?
 
I've never washed any of my snakes in 21 years and they're all fine, so I don't think it actually does make a difference to their health. My 24 year old has never been washed and they wouldn't be washed in the wild.
 
I almost feel like snakes don't get as dirty as other animals. They don't have many places to get dirt stuck on, and it would probably wipe away pretty quickly. I've never seen my snakes with feces on them.
 
I agree, excuse me if I'm wrong but I'm a new snake owner, and i am more experienced in keeping bearded dragons. Thank you for your points and I will take something from them for my future experiences, however I must say I have come across snakes before in pet shops were the were unclean and smelly but their viv were clean this may be due to lack of commitment employees have in pet shops. Even so I would recompensed just letting a snake swim through some water at the bottom of a bowl.
 
My fiance makes fun of me because apparently I have the "magic touch" - one of my girls loves to poop herself whenever I pull her into a spare tub during cage cleaning times. It almost seems like she's doing me a favor and saving me a little more bedding, but I do have to give her a quick dip in lukewarm water afterwards. ;) Aside from that, though, your snakes should stay pretty clean as long as you're catching poops and other messes regularly!
 
I think snakes avoid crawling in poo at all costs. I've seen those that poop in their feeding containers clinging to the little ledge up in the top so they won't be down on the floor with the poo.

Bearded dragons, though- they'll crawl right through it! An electric toothbrush works wonders for cleaning dragons!!
 
yes, ill have agree with majority on this one,all snakes actually seem like really clean animals to begin with, so I don't really feel a need to bath them.. my little Guy never crawls through his own Feces, but I do like to let mine crawl through some wet paper towels in his deli cup to help him get off any stuck sheds so I guess he does get washed here and there, and his moss hide helps out too! ;) he's always nice and shiney whenever he comes out of it :)
 
If I have a baby (or adult, for that matter) that gets mouse juice from slitting on itself, or Nutribac, I just rinse them under room temp tap water on the way back to their viv. They freak out the first time, then don't care at all!
 
I have had my high white pied paint his body with poop within a couple hours of a freshly cleaned tank. But I'm sure its purely Murphy's law because he is almost all white and made his mess all that more obvious.
Otherwise I have never noticed a dirty snake. Although I don't imagine it causing harm unless it stresses a particular snake out.
 
I have had my high white pied paint his body with poop within a couple hours of a freshly cleaned tank.
Click to expand...
Sorry Meg but that made me laugh! They really do know the buttons to press, don't they?

And the lure of pooping in a freshly-cleaned tank seems almost pathological for some of them. I've contemplated leaving a small tub of the dirty bedding in their favourite "poop corner" for a couple of days, to see if that prevents it. I wondered if it's something to do with making the place smell like "home" again.
 
I know from when I had rats that they do mark a clean cage. Ours would always mark up a cage once we cleaned them, but I'm not sure if snakes do that.
 
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