Pet-Snakes

Here are 3 simple tips that will help your pet snake shed in one piece the first time around.

Provide the proper humidity

We’ll get started with the first and most important tip of them all. There is no single greater cause of shedding problems than the humidity being too low. Every species of snake has an optimal range of humidity levels to keep it healthy. Make sure you stay within that range. Also don’t forget that the upper end of the range usually jumps up when the snake shows signs of shedding so be sure you are aware of when that happens. Then you can make the proper adjustments.

Don’t over-soak your snake

A lot of people when they notice their snake is getting ready to shed will begin soaking it. Every single day for over an hour a day. This is especially common with people who have had bad experiences with shedding before due to the humidity being too low. Chances are they found out that the way to correct the problem is to soak their snake so they figure by soaking before the snake tries to shed they’ll be preventing a bad shed issue. The problem is that the soak actually robs the snake of essential oils that it builds up between the old and the new layer of skin. If you do need to soak your snake briefly at the beginning of the shed is fine. By briefly I mean 10 or 15 minutes at most ONE TIME! After that is unnecessary and moves from the realm of helping your snake shed successfully to assisting it with a bad shed.

Leave it alone while it is shedding

Shedding is a stressful and uncomfortable process for a snake so leave it be. Once you recognize that the snake is getting ready to shed you should minimize contact with it. Spot cleaning the tank is fine, hour long holding sessions are not.

Those 3 tips will help your snake to shed better. The most important thing you can do is to make sure the humidity is at the proper levels.

Learning proper snake care is the key to a long and healthy life for your scaled friends. Everyday more and more people are getting snake’s without being ready to care for them. This happens because they haven’t been given the right information or because they don’t know where to look. Taking care of a snake is an easy process if you learn what needs to be done.

Proper snake care: Use various sources of info

Since you are reading this it is a pretty safe assumption you have the internet. The internet is an incredible knowledge base just waiting for you to use it. There are plenty of individual websites, forums, and blogs that will give you all the snake care instruction you can handle.

Another source is the local library. Don’t hesitate to get a few books on caring for snakes from there. It will give you an opportunity to get much more focused and in depth on various aspects of a snake’s needs. Something the internet doesn’t always provide the same luxury of doing.

Contact local herpetological clubs in your area. A quick search for herpetological societies online will give you several databases to look through. Find one in your area and get in contact with them. Tell them that you’re a new snake owner and want to learn how to take care of your animal. They’ll be more than honored to help you out.

Gathering information is both easy and the basis of providing good care for your snakes in the future.

Proper snake care: Focus on what you need

As great as it is to have all the various sources of information don’t waste your time with a shotgun approach to learning about snake care. Find the information you need pertaining to the particular species you have. If you just got a corn snake don’t spend hours learning about king snakes. Once you’ve gotten enough knowledge to properly care for your snake then worry about expaning what you know.

Proper snake care: Don’t get a snake until you know what to do

In a perfect world you’d have everything setup properly before the snake came home. We all know it’s not a perfect world, but you should be able to to provide for the snake’s most basic care before it gets to you. If you visit any snake related forums it is nothing to see 30 people a day asking the most basic things about a snake they already have. For example “How do I get my snake to eat?”, or “What should the temperature be in my snake’s cage?”

Even if you don’t have time to do any research at least spend 5 minutes searching the internet for a care sheet to help you with your snake.

The more you know about caring for your snake the more likely you are to have a good experience with it. An improperly cared for snake can be aggressive, a poor eater, and prone to sickness.

A common question is from people asking if they need a special permit to own a pet snake where they live. My first response is to send them to the breeder or store they plan on purchasing the snake from and asking them. Assuming the store or breeder is located in the same state as the buyer they are going to know the answer to the question and the steps to go through to get the permit in a timely fashion.

If for some reason the store doesn’t know (highly unlikely) or the snake is being purchased out of state from a breeder it is important to know your local, and state regulations concerning snakes. In order to find that information it is best to directly contact your state’s equivalent to the fish and wildlife department. Often they are the ones who are responsible for issuing permits to keep certain snakes as pets. Even if they aren’t they can normally help you get in touch with the right people.

If you need a permit the next step is to get it BEFORE you have the snake. That means learning about the process ahead of time. Some things you should find out are:

• How much will the permit cost?
• Is it a per snake permit or does one cover all?
• How long does the entire process take generally?
• What is the possibility of a permit being denied?
• Is it a lifetime permit or does it need to be renewed?
• What is the appeals process in the case of a denial?

The reason for doing everything before you have the snake is because you don’t want to lose your pet over a technicality because you didn’t follow the rules.

Suppose you go through the entire process and you are denied a permit for whatever reason. What should you do then? The first thing to do is to begin the appeals process as quickly as possible. Since there is too much diversity between the various states it is impossible to give advise on how to go about it. Just be sure you follow “the letter of the law” exactly so you don’t trip yourself up while you are appealing.

One thing you should never do is to just take it upon yourself to have the snake without the required permits. That reflects badly on the entire snake owning community and it will likely get your pet confiscated and possibly destroyed. Also there might actually be a good reason for denying you a permit. The Florida Everglade’s and the snake problem there come to mind as a reason not to permit people to own certain kinds of snakes.

Finally you should be aware of changes to the laws in your area that might affect your snake ownership. Most of the time your existing snakes would be grandfathered in, but new ones would not be.

A question I frequently come across online and in various emails I receive from readers is regarding how to get avoid getting bitten by a pet snake. Snakes are very simple creatures with rudimentary brains and they only bite for a few reasons. Once you know the reasons your snake is biting you it becomes much easier to avoid.

Fear

Snakes, just like all other animals have a natural defense mechanism to lash out and bite when they feel threatened. This is especially true if you don’t handle your snakes often. I read a description on the internet once that really drove the point home for me. In a nutshell what the person said was this -

Your snake is minding its own business just hanging out and all of a sudden Godzilla comes along, picks up the house, moves things around, grabs the snake and packs it off. The snake is scared to death and strikes out.

That’s not an exact quote but it gives you the idea. If the snake isn’t familiar with you it will fear you. If it fears you then it will very likely bite you.

Hunger

When it is feeding time and you start prodding around in the snake’s tank it doesn’t matter how tame it is chances are that it will attempt to strike at you. It is only a matter of time before you get bit by a hungry snake looking for an easy meal if you don’t pay attention to the signs.

A hungry snake will often exhibit the following characteristics:

• Excessive tongue flickering as it smells the air for possible prey
• A lot of roaming back and forth within the tank as it searches for prey
• When you open the tank it will often sit in the strike position waiting for prey
• Sometimes they will yawn a lot to loosen up their jaws and prepare to strike

Not all snakes react the same way to being hungry, but those are a few common warning signs. You’ll need to learn how to read your own snake’s behavior to determine when it is hungry. You’ll greatly improve the likelihood of getting yourself bit if you ignore the snake’s signals when it wants something to eat.

You smell like the snake’s food

If you smell like the prey your snake eats chances are sooner or later it is going to strike and bite you. Don’t handle the food and then handle the snake before washing your hands. Actually it is a good idea to wash your hands before and after handling your snake regardless of if you’ve handled the snake’s food.

Genetics

When all is said and done some snakes tend to be more aggressive than others which leads them to bite more often. Certain species have a tendency to be more nippy. Amazon Tree Pythons for example are known for being more likely to bite. Young Carpet Pythons are known to be biters until they get used to being handled. Some snakes will outgrow it and some won’t. That’s why it is very important to research the snake you plan to buy and have a through understanding of the type of animal it is genetically.

Those are the main reasons why snakes bite. Sometimes it is tempting to attribute human emotions to a snake and tell people that their snake bit them because “it doesn’t like you”. Please avoid doing this as it is completely untrue. Snakes neither like nor dislike people. They are either motivated or not to bite based on outside stimulus not on emotions. Avoiding snake bites isn’t hard it just takes common sense and being aware of what is going on.

Before you acquire a pet snake give some thought to how much it will really cost. The initial purchase price is only one very tiny part of the overall cost of a snake. Just like any other pet snakes require vet visits, food, shelter, water, and more. Unlike cats and dogs snakes require specially suited environments to live in. Heating pads and lights running 24/7 will run up your energy bills very quickly.

Cost of the snake

This is the cost of the snake itself. It is a onetime fee and can range anywhere from free to tens of thousands of dollars. If you only ever buy one snake this will be the only time you’ll need to count this cost in your figures.

Cost of equipment for snakes

We’ll start by assuming that you aren’t going to build your own snake cage and thus save yourself a great deal of money. Instead we will assume that you are going to buy the equipment from a pet store. Let’s take a look at the cost of this equipment to properly house and secure your snake.

• Glass aquarium: You’re very likely going to pay at least $100.00 for this piece of equipment alone
• Under Tank Heater (UTH): Around $25 to $30 for one of these
• Heat lamp setup: Prepare to spend between $50.00 and $75.00 on this stuff
• Substrate: About $15 to $25 for a bag of this stuff that will last about 4 to 6 weeks
• Miscellaneous: Hides, water bowl, climbing branches, fake foliage, and all the rest will cost you about $25 to $50
• Food: Figure that each mouse you need will cost between $1 and $2 and rats about 3/4 to twice that amount
• Literature: You’ll probably want to get a book (or 10) about your snake and how to care for it. Minimum cost will be $10 and it will go up from there
• Vet Checkup: Since you’re a good parent you will get your snake to the vet as soon as possible for a basic health check. Because snakes are a specialized animal you’ll likely pay more than you would for a dog or a cat
• Heating the room: No matter what you use to heat a snakes cage you’ll also need to factor in the cost of heating the room they are in above and beyond the rest of your house

Now take all of those costs mentioned above and any others you might think of on your own and add them up. Once you do that consider that snakes can live to be 15 to 40 years old and multiply those costs over that amount of time. For example you will go through at least three or four tanks as the snake reaches its full size. Bulbs burn out, food gets eaten, books become outdated. All of which means you’ll be buying it more than once.

Emergency costs of keeping a snake

What if your snake bites someone? Are you prepared to pay their medical bills and lawyer fees if need be? How about if your snake gets sick? Will you be able to afford a vet to take care of it? It’s always a good idea to set aside $800 to $1200 just for covering the cost of snake emergencies that you might not even think of until they happen.

Other costs you might not have thought about

If your snake is a high value animal (let’s say worth over $1,000) you might want to have it insured. You might want to have it insured if it is a large species of snake. You’ll have to buy cleaning supplies. Gas for taking it to the vets or running back and forth to get it food if you don’t breed your own

This isn’t to discourage anyone from getting a pet snake. It is just so that you can see that actual cost of keeping a snake as a pet. Sometimes we find someone giving away a snake and it never occurs to us how much free can really cost.