Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know the obvious reasons for a snake being in a water bowl, but he doesnt have mites, and he's not in blue.
It scared the Sh!# out of me at first, but he's just been sleeping in there for the last few hours.
Is there anything to worry about????
He has never done this before, and has been eating and I've seen him drinking in the last few days????
Thanks for any ideas
TomChambers

I have a couple of males who do this. They only seem to do it when the humidity in the cage is to low.

What I do is spray the substrate lightly with a mist bottle under one of the hides. Then they go back to sleeping in the hide box.

Give that a try,
Brian Miller
BC Reptiles
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ok so I went to the vet yesterday for my a problem with my ball (see post below). they gave me a paper on snake care, this is what it says about sleeping in the bowl. one of the most common problems we see at the hospital is snakes that are sick because they have been sitting for extended periods in unheated water dishes. if not given sufficient hiding places, or if they are shedding, or for a variety of unknown reasons, some snakes will crawl into their water and sit there for hours. as their body temp slowly drops lower and lower and lower, it eventually gets to the water temp (which is cooler than the air) and then the snakes gets very ill. if you snake does this, you need to either put in a dish that is too small for the snake to get its whole body into, or heat the water up to the mid-80's

hope that helps, can you tell I have extra time on my hands

Misty
Link

I actually have many males that do this. my boxes are very small and warm. water temp equals the air temp. I usually find a nice present in the box shortly after. It seems that water bowl laxative works great for cleaning them out.

I would just keep an eye out for little baby mites just incase or just treat the enclosure for them anyway. Provent-a-mite works great and does last through the life cycle of eggs.

Hope this helps Tom

Mike King
MK Reptiles

Well, he slept in the water for 3 hours. The humidity hasn't changed(low 60's/ when not in shed), but I'll assume he needed a bit more. I checked him again for mites this morning and he is clean.
Thanks again
TomChambers

The only time I've seen my ball pythons in the water bowl is when I have it a little hotter than optimal. Right now I've got the heat cranked pretty good (88.7 deg F mid cage) in one rack with an incubating female. The box below her has a big very gravid girl so I'm checking on her a lot and have found her with her head in the water a few times lately (the bowl isn't big enough for her to fit much more). One time I’ll find her in the back near the heat and the next with her head in the water up front again. I'm keeping a close eye to make sure nothing is over 90 deg F.

I was thinking that too, since it did get about 85 yesterday here in the north east. I did turn off the heat light, and the cool end was about 85 during the day(A bit warmer than usual). Although he was soaking about 9:00 pm last night after it cooled back down. That is definitely a possibility. I'm going to have to watch the temps as the season changes here.
Thanks for the insight
TomChambers