Tidy little scrub

[Selkielass]

I observed something interesting while feeding Abby today.
I noticed she has problems with full sized night crawlers, so I gathered some small worms to offer her.
She touched them with her nose, then proceeded to wipe the slime off on the paper towel substrate!

I thought I had accidentally got one of the 'red' worms that are no-no's so later I cut a night crawler into quarters (Each section a bit over an inch long.) and put the pieces into a shallow glass dish.

She pounced with on a section, gobbled it down, then spent a minute or so cleaning up by wiping her mouth and head on the substrate! She refused to go after any more of the worm, I suspect because the dish is now full of slime and worm guts.

Has anyone else seen this behavior? Is a quarter of a large nightcrawler a sufficient meal for an 11 inch garter?

[Holly]

My Dekayi does this! He wipes off his face after a meal, it's so weird but cute!

[guidofatherof5]

How big was the worm? Do I understand correctly that your snake ate 1/4 of the worm cut-up?
Most of my radixes wipe their mouths after eating. Many times it's on my arm.
It's kind of a two fold move. They wipe and push against me which helps in moving the worm down.

[ssssnakeluvr]

thats normal, just cleaning off their face. worms are mostly water....quarter of a worm isn't much of a meal... needs more. :cool:

[oki-inu]

My easterns do that all the time, too.

[drache]

yeah, garters apparently do have a sense of cleanliness - even the ones with the big poop blotches halfway down their bodies. Some of my garters will not eat worms at all, and I suspect it's the slime that's bothering them. I wonder whether cutting the worms up makes it better or worse

[infernalis]

I have seen this in Dekayi and garters, never when they eat whole pinkie mice though.

[gartermorphs]

yah i noticed my new nebraska albino wipeing his face off as we all know garters are so silly!

[guidofatherof5]

yeah i noticed my new nebraska albino wipeing his face off as we all know garters are so silly!

And apparently very well mannered :D

[mustang]

checker does it too!

[ConcinusMan]

All my garters do that. Not every time, but they all do it. Amy does it every time I feed her. Sometimes she doesn't even wait 'till it's swallowed.

[The Snake Whisperer]

All of my Eastern garters also do that. In addition, I also find that they rarely ever defecate inside their hide boxes. Like all my corn snakes, my garters usually defecate in a corner of their enclosure near their water container, as far from their hide boxes as possible. Two smarter garters have figured out that if they defecate in their feeding containers after eating (I feed them in separate containers), they can REALLY leave their mess behind! :)) These two regularly do this. My california kingsnake and my black rat snake also defecate consistently by their water container, away from their den.
My ball python however, seems to not care where she defecates. Maybe the ball python is unconcerned about cleanliness because like most birds, their feces drop away from them.
I suspect that other snake species who are ground dwellers are also clean and that tree dwelling snakes don't have this cleanliness instinct. Its a subject I've never seen mentioned in any scientific writing yet. Yet it's consistent-I've seen litters of baby garters be much cleaner about elimination habits than litters of puppies, yet we all know which species is considered more intelligent of the two!

[ConcinusMan]

My snakes don't seem to care where they dump. Sometimes they seem to prefer the water dish, but for the most part, especially if I stuff them with night crawlers, they poop everywhere. In their hides, on each other, in the water, everywhere!

[Mommy2many]

My snakes all like to wipe their faces. They also tend not to defecate in their hides but somebody always has to do it in the water dish (the big snakes)

[ConcinusMan]

Not so bad when I'm feeding rodents once or twice a week but the last couple of days, they've been pigging out on free (collected) night crawlers. What a mess! Poop everywhere! Seems like every time I change the water, someone takes a drink, then poops in it.:mad: And yes, it's the biggest (and currently gravid) concinnus that are doing it.

Also irritating is the fact that they don't just wipe their faces you know. I clean the glass, then they wipe their....

Right on the clean glass!!

[mustang]

hey atleast yalls snakes wipe their ... on the glass mine does it right where he does it....sadly sometime on my comphoerter

[Holly]

Noodle always poops on top of his hides. Tiny little jerk!

[mustang]

Noodle always poops on top of his hides. Tiny little jerk!
but now you know were to find it atleast

[guidofatherof5]

Mine love to wait until it's a group bath time. If I'm cleaning an enclosure, like tonight. I put all those snakes in a tub of water for a bath.
I always have another tub with water waiting. 5 to 10 minutes after the first tub is used I transfer them over to the second one.
The first one looks like Poop Soup. Sometimes it requires a 3rd tub but not very often.

[mustang]

:(oh jeez steve whyd you go and say that ill never look at soup the same:(:(:(

[ConcinusMan]

:(oh jeez steve whyd you go and say that ill never look at soup the same:(:(:(


Yeah, that really paints a graphic picture. Steve dipping into a tub of snakes and snake poop soup:p

[guidofatherof5]

:(oh jeez steve whyd you go and say that ill never look at soup the same:(:(:(

I don't know what kind of soup you're used to seeing but I've never seen anything that looks like my snakes bath water.:D
Sorry for the poop soup analogy:rolleyes:

[kibakiba]

Mama does that all the time! She's a clean little girl... Snakey however doesn't and will sometimes appear to have slime dried on his nose! He just doesn't care haha.

[Mommy2many]

Steve, do you put them in the bathtub?

[ConcinusMan]

I don't know about steve, but I do. I mean, I did have a snake a while back that had a lump near it's cloaca and crusties. A few swims in the bathtub and the problem was cleared. I just don't make it a practice to do that unless there's a good reason such as that which I already mentioned.

[guidofatherof5]

Steve, do you put them in the bathtub?

No, the biggest thing I use is the kitchen sink.

*ALERT*
Beware of using a bathroom sink. They usually have vent holes and tiny/small snakes can get in them. I never had it happen but came close.
That was the last time I used that sink for snakes.

[ConcinusMan]

My kitchen sink doesn't have that but the bathrooms do. I did lose one like that when I was a kid. He did come out a day or two later while my mom was brushing her teeth. She wasn't happy about it.

[Hollis_Steed]

My kitchen sink doesn't have that but the bathrooms do. I did lose one like that when I was a kid. He did come out a day or two later while my mom was brushing her teeth. She wasn't happy about it.

:D