Hello,
I was wondering about someting my Northern black racer has been doing since I purchased it when it was a baby. I understand that racers have a high metabolism, and therefore need to eat a lot, but I have always been surprised at how much this animal defecates. The amount of feces that I find in the tank frequently seems to defy the laws of physics. The snake tends to defecate all over its rock pile, and then smears the feces on the walls of the tank, in the cracks of te rocks, and then urinates on the substrate. I clean and clean, but just as soon as the tank is fixed, it looks as if I have not cleaned it in a year. I was wondering if this "painting" behavior may be territorial, and if it may have to do with the snake establishing its territory. Is this normal behavior for a racer, and how can I deal with it to make displaying this messy snake less of a hastle? Thank you for any help you can provide.
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DAVE
0.0.1 Oriental fire-bellied toad
0.1 Western hog-nosed snake
0.0.1 Okeetee corn snake
0.1 Dubia day gecko
0.0.1 yellow * Everglades rat snake
1.0 Yunnan beauty snake
1.0 scarlet kingsnake
0.1 albino African clawed frog
0.0.1 Northern black racer
0.0.1 African brown house snake (Zambia locale)
0.0.1 Sonoran gopher snake
1.1 European fire salamanders
(parthenogenic) Brahminy blindsnakes *
