- When you bring a new pet snake home,
you'll probably want to start holding it immediately
but that might not be the best thing to do.
That's why today we are going to talk about
what to do when you bring a new snake home.
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The first thing you'll wanna do with your new pet snake
is give it an overall just kind of general inspection
to make sure it's in good health.
If you're buying a snake at a reptile show
or somewhere where you're there
when you are buying that snake, it's nice
because you can kind of give them an inspection
right there on the spot.
But if you buy a snake online, other than the pictures
that you can view before purchasing it,
you pretty much have to wait until they arrive
before you can physically check it out.
So let me show you what consists
of a general inspection on a new snake.
Down here we have, we kind of set this up for today
but pretend this is a snake that just arrived here.
We're opening up our box.
It's a very exciting moment here
'cause your new snake has just arrived
and oh, we're not using the Anaconda for this are we?
- [Man] Yeah. You have to check him over.
- We are not using
- Tiny. - I mean, he only just bit me
when I brought him up.
- [Woman] No, did he really?
- [Man] Yeah, he got my finger.
All those little, teenie bite marks.
- [Woman] Yeah. We're not using him
for this video. - Yeah, you are.
- No. - Just take him out.
Look at your boy.
Look, he's huffy today.
He's in a bad mood.
- [Man] He is in a bad mood today,
but he can't have, he's a big snake,
he can't have bad mood dates.
- I don't wanna use Tiny for this video.
We're gonna switch you out
for somebody else who's
more handle-able for an example of a video.
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- [Man] I put it a different animal in there.
She unboxes herself.
- We can't use the bird for this either.
- [Man] But look, now she's unboxed
- Yay! - and she's happy.
- You did it!
No, no, not using her. (laughs)
(tone beeping)
Okay I found an animal to use for this video
so we can move on finally.
- [Man] Oh, both of mine would've worked just fine.
- First things first, if your box arrives cold
because it's winter time where you live
or when you're getting your snake,
you should open up the lid,
take a peek at the animal inside.
And your snake will arrive in either a bag like this
if it's a larger species or larger or older snake,
or it'll be in a small deli if it's a baby
or a smaller species.
And if it's cold, all you wanna do is peek inside,
make sure the snake is still alive and looking good,
but then tie up the bag or seal off the deli
and leave it alone for a couple of hours
to gradually warm up to room temperature.
The reason why you don't want to take the snake out
and warm it up manually in your hands or worse yet
put it into an enclosure where it's like 90 degrees
is because the change of temperature
from a snake that's around 40 degrees,
'cause being cold-blooded,
they match the temperature of their surroundings.
So if you take a 40 degree, snake, move it
into a 90 degree enclosure, it could easily
go into shock and die.
So that's why it seems weird, but you wanna leave
the cold snake in the cold bag in the box.
Leave the lid open, of course, and then let it
slowly become room temperature.
If your snake does arrive cold, it might even look dead
if it's cold enough, but snakes are very resilient
and they usually come right back as soon as they warm up
to room temperature.
But if you're worried at all,
definitely keep the seller in the loop
because usually live arrivals guarantees only work
or are only applicable for the first 15 minutes
or hour after arrival.
The reason why sellers usually don't offer
a live arrival guarantee much longer than an hour or so
is because they want to ensure that that box is not sitting
on a hot or cold front doorstep for more than,
you know half an hour or an hour
before it's brought into regular temperatures.
- [Man] Ideally you meet the FedEx guy at the door
and take it from him
at the door. - Yeah.
That's why if your snake arrives cold,
you need to let the seller know right away
so that they're aware of the fact
that you did bring the snake in immediately
after it arrived, but you're just letting it warm up
to room temperatures, which may take a couple of hours.
That way the seller knows that you're doing the right thing.
Okay now your snake is a good temperature,
whether you had to wait it out or not,
you can take your snake out of the bay.
We have a beautiful piebald ball Python here today
and you'll wanna do a general inspection
of the entire snake right away.
Again the live arrival guarantees only lasts
for about 15 minutes to an hour or so,
depending on the seller.
Other vendors may have longer exchange policies than others
but it's still good to get that general inspection
out of the way ASAP and then your snake
can start settling in afterwards.
The three things you want to look over
in regards to your snakes, health are its body condition,
its behavior and any external concerns.
For body condition, you'll pretty much just wanna check over
the entire snake's body and make sure
that it came in at a good weight.
And it seems healthy and nice and robust.
This is of course species dependent or species specific.
Some snakes like green tree pythons are naturally
a thinner bodied snake than say a ball python here.
So of course know your species
and what their proper body weight should be.
Next, you'll wanna look at their behavior.
Is the snake moving around?
Is it holding up its body well?
Is it tongue flicking?
These are all things that you should be observing
for specifically to ensure that the snake is just behaving
like a healthy snake would be.
Looking at this piebald, he is exploring,
kind of checking out his surroundings,
he is tongue flicking just fine and looking more closely,
his forks on his tongue are spread out as he flicks.
If they're stuck together, then well,
some snakes flick and their forks stick together sometimes,
but it could be if it's a recurring problem with every flick
it could be a sign of an upper respiratory infection.
If you're concerned about an upper respiratory at all,
look at their mouths.
If they have excess saliva around their mouth
or if they're drooling, that is not a good sign at all.
If they're showing any open mouth breathing behavior,
those are all signs of an upper respiratory infection.
So another thing you can do is actually
hold them up to your ear
and you can listen to their breathing
and if you hear any questionable wheezing,
even though again, some snakes kind of wheezy naturally
like reticulated pythons, we've noticed
sometimes have a ways to them.
So again, know the species and its natural behavior
but you can listen to their breathing sometimes too.
And finally, you'll want to look
for any external concerns.
By this, I mean, are there any odd looking lumps
along the body of the snake.
Make sure their eyes look good, their nose is clear,
there's no stuck shed.
Are there any kinks along its spine?
And for this, you're gonna have to stretch out your snake,
kind of hold it at different angles.
To check it spine, you can take your thumb
and just run it down the spine itself.
Make sure that that all feels nice and straight and smooth.
Kinks are more often seen towards the end of their body
like near their tail or in the tail itself,
as well as lumps.
If the snake comes in overweight,
you'll often see fatty deposits near its cloacal area
on the last third of its body.
Not to say they can't appear further up the body too though.
If a snake comes in overweight or if it just has
an unusual cyst in its body, those can appear
anywhere along its body.
Another external concern to look for would be signs
of scale rot in a snake.
This is usually a result of too high of humidity
that the snake was kept in
and you can usually see scale rot and actually it looks
like rotting scales.
You usually see it on their belly scales
'cause if they're sitting on wet substrate for too long,
their belly scales are what's gonna come into contact
with that moisture.
So therefore those are the most susceptible
to obtaining scale rot.
This snake doesn't show any at all.
He's actually, he looks great.
This is a newer snake of ours
and we kind of did his inspections so,
unfortunately, but not, unfortunately
he doesn't have any scale rot for me to show you today.
And the last thing that you can pretty easily see
during your general or initial inspection
would be mites, which are an external parasite
which left untreated can kill a snake
but they are thankfully very easy to treat
but it's something you definitely don't want to spread
to the rest of your collection.
So you want to check any new snakes for mites immediately.
Mites are little tiny parasites
that like to wedge themselves in between the scales
and they do drink the blood of a snake.
So that's why they're wedged way in there.
And generally to find them, I mean, it's really easy
on the piebald ball python 'cause they look like
little black flecks in the scales,
not to say that these are mites.
These are just black colored scales
but on lighter colored snakes,
they are definitely easier to spot.
Mites are often seen around the eyes of a snake.
So if you can gently yet safely restrain
a snake's head like this with your thumb on top,
then you can typically get a close-up look at their eyes
or around their eyes.
He's not happy with this right now.
- [Man] No he was not happy.
- (laughs) I'm sorry, bud, I'm sorry,
but you can usually see the mites wedged in
around their eyes too.
As well as snakes with heat pits, like ball pythons.
The mites like to wedge themselves in those pits too.
So definitely check those.
And the last spot to check would be under their chin.
They love to wedge to themselves in between the chin scales.
So those are kind of the hotspot areas
to check for mites that we've noticed in
or in our experiences, but check the whole body over
and it's at the end, take your hand
and wipe down the whole body and check your hand afterwards.
And usually if they have mites, you'll see a couple
of 'em come off after you wipe down their body.
So just check your hands too.
After you've done a complete check over of your snake
and assuming everything's okay, if it's not,
bring up any concerns again to the seller ASAP,
but if everything is okay then your next step
is getting your snake into quarantine.
We've had a lot of questions about how to quarantine,
when to quarantine or how long to quarantine snakes for,
so we're gonna go into all of that next.
Ideally you should have its habitat or quarantine set up
all ready to go before you even bring your snake home
or before it's even delivered to your house.
If you're an experienced keeper though,
and you have all the supplies and you're familiar
with how they all work.
You could probably set up their quarantine enclosure
the day you get the snake.
But if this is your very first snake, then in order
to become familiarized with how thermostats work
or other heating elements then I highly recommend
getting that all set up at least a couple of days
before you receive your snake.
The reason why we quarantine new reptiles is because
if you were to put a new reptile in your say snake room
and it had mites or some other disease or parasite,
it would then transfer that disease
to the rest of your collection.
But if you keep them separated, you can diagnose
whatever is wrong first, treat them for it
and then when they get the all clear after so long,
which we'll get into later, then you can put them in
with the rest of your reptiles,
knowing that they are safe and healthy.
So that all being said, if your new reptile
is your very first reptile and therefore
it's gonna be the only reptile in your household,
there's really no need to separate from everything else
because there are no other reptiles
that it could potentially infect.
So if it's your first snake,
you can just put it right into its enclosure
in the area of your house you want it to be long-term
and no separation is needed.
If your new snake is not the only snake in your house,
that's when it is a good idea to separate them
in a different room altogether for their quarantine.
The key to a successful quarantine enclosure
is to keep everything as easy to clean
and sterilized as possible.
For that we recommend, I mean, if you're gonna keep a snake
in a snake rack, you can just use one of the bins
just in a different area than the rest of your collection.
If you're using an enclosure, like a tank or whatever
you're planning on keeping it in permanently, that's fine.
You can use the tank too, just in a separate room.
To keep cleaning easy, for substrate, we recommend
just using paper towels.
These are also a great way to be able
to monitor the reptiles droppings and if it has any mites
that you may have missed during its initial inspection,
you will see those little black specks of mites
against the white paper towels.
If your reptile has higher humidity requirements,
you can just simply mist down the paper towels
with the dechlorinated water.
That being said, some keepers will use
just the regular substrate like Aspen shavings
or a Cypress mulch for the quarantine substrate.
It really just depends on not only the species of snake
that is going to be in quarantine,
but where it came from, like its breeder's reputation
versus maybe being a Craigslist find or something.
So the substrate is up to you in the end.
Once you have your substrate figured out,
then you want to of course add some hides
so that the snake or other reptile can feel secure in.
Maybe some things to climb on,
a simple water dish which could be something
as easy as a peanut butter jar lid, honestly.
it doesn't have to be something fancy.
But for this, my main recommendation is just to use items
of decor or water dishes that are easy to disinfect.
Obviously this is kind of set up
for a smaller species of snake.
This is even too small for ball python
that I had for a quarantine pen
but this is what just fit on camera best.
- [Man] He's not going to fit in these hides very well.
- [Woman] No, not really.
During quarantine process, it's very important
to make sure you wash your hands
after interacting with your snake that is in quarantine.
You of course don't want to pick up something
from your new snake and then go and handle
another snake of yours because I mean,
you're still exposing your other snakes
to potential pathogens.
So yeah, make sure you wash your hands
after interacting with your new snakes in quarantine.
Speaking of handling your new snakes in quarantine,
when you receive your new snake, don't hold it.
Leave it alone.
After its initial inspection,
just put it in its quarantine enclosure
and leave it completely alone.
This is the hardest part about receiving a new snake
because you of course want to hold it all the time
'cause it's a new family member for you
but that is not in the best interest of the snake itself.
Often snakes will refuse to eat food,
if they feel too stressed.
And if they are both settling into a new home
and being held on a regular basis,
that is definitely going to increase the chances
of them being too stressed to eat when you offer
food for the first time.
So completely leave them alone for a week, then offer food.
If they eat, then that's great.
It means that they're settling in nicely.
Still leave them alone for a day or two
to digest that first meal and then
you can start handling them.
Some species and some individuals snakes
are a lot better at adjusting
to new surroundings than others.
We've had some bull snakes that we send off
to their new homes and the new owners
fed them the same day, they arrived
and they ate and they were fine.
Whereas if you get like a Hognose Snake
and you hold it even once during that first week,
it's probably not going to eat for you and other snakes,
you'll look at them funny and they refuse to eat.
So it really depends on the snake on how quickly
they're going to settle into their new homes.
So that's why you want to at least give them
about a week to kind of calm down.
If after a few weeks your snake is behaving fine
and eating well for you on a regular basis,
then you should be in the clear and you should be okay
to start handling it more frequently.
Assuming it has a day or two to digest
after taking a meal, of course, but yeah,
then you should be good to go.
However, we still recommend quarantining your snake
for at minimum one month.
Again, if it's your one and only snake,
you don't have to quarantine it or separate it
'cause it can't infect any other snakes in your house
or other reptiles in your house.
But one month is a good minimum quarantine length.
We try to do a little bit longer and it depends
on where the snakes came from.
If we picked up a snake from Craigslist,
we're gonna quarantine it
for closer to three months honestly.
But if it came from a really good breeder,
then it might be closer to a month.
We have a couple of snakes that have been in quarantine
for about a year and a half because they came from
a situation where there were questionable health issues
in the household.
They seem just fine.
We've had them tested for everything,
but we still have him in quarantine
and it's been about a year and a half,
just because we're paranoid.
I know a lot of people,
if they have like a wild caught animal
and that's a debate for another day,
catching wild reptiles, that's actually
another video that we have on the channel.
They will quarantine newly wild caught specimens
for about a year before introducing them
to the rest of their collection.
- [Man] Which makes sense.
You never know what the wild's gonna bring in.
- Yeah exactly. Snakes can hide things for a long time.
- [Man] Yeah and I think the ones that we've only
really quarantined for about a month
have been ones that we've been to their place,
looking at all their animals and then we also
get the animals, so we know them as friends and all that.
- Yeah so it depends on the situation,
but it's ultimately up to you in the end.
Well I hope you all learned something new today
when it comes to bringing a new snake
or any reptile home for that matter,
a lot of these tactics can be applied to other reptiles,
not just snakes.
We'd of course like to thank all of our amazing
and generous Patreon-backers
for your fantastic support on this channel.
We love all of you and thank you to everyone
who is spending their time here with us,
learning about snakes.
Oh, by the way, we have a pair of piebald ball pythons.
You'll see more of them in the future.
- [Man] Yup.
- [Woman] We a caved and bought ball pythons
- [Man] We failed on not ever breeding pall pythons.
- Yeah. We're gonna breed pyths.
Spoiler alert, but I guess,
whoever is still here watching.
We have pyths.
Thanks there everybody and we'll see you next time.
(tone beeping)
Speaking of handling snakes in quarantine,
the heart - Oh.
Wait a minute. - Oh geez.
That's okay, I have to do that.
Redo it anyway. - Okay good.
Did Danae bring her label maker over?
- Yeah, that's hers.
We're gonna use it to label the jumping spiders.
- [Man] All right.
Well, I have another use for it.
- You labeling this, oh are you labeling me?
- Yup.
- Oh, thanks. (man laughing)
Thanks.
- [Man] Look, now we know who she is. Emily.
- That's me.
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