Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My girlfriend has what was sold as a redtail boa. We were told by someone that boas have a high rate of getting mouth rot and have very dirty mouths. We were told to use listerine mouth wash on the boas mouth once per month. I have never heard of this before. Has anyone else?

btw no I haven't had her do this yet.

Sounds like she was given info from someone with little information about reptiles. No don't do that.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

Thats the funny thing. He could name every single corn snake, boa, and ball python morph I have ever heard of. Could tell how to care for every type of snake he named. The listerine thing was the ONLY one thing he said that I had never ever heard of. He was even rather irritated that someone at a local petstore had not fed frozen/thawed to a constrictor that ended up with rat damage. Everything else he said was on par with everything I have ever heard. I have NO idea where this came from. I was just wondering if anyone had EVER heard of it.

...at least as a profilactic measure. In over 20 years of keeping all kinds of snakes I have only seen one case of mouth rot and that happened when I used to feed live and the rat scratched the gums of the snake pretty badly. Listerine is heavy in the alcohol department which all snakes dispise. (I even keep some liquor near the snake cages in case of a strike and wrap). To subject your snake to that once a month could be a huge stressor and cause more damage that it helps.

Just my opinion but not all information (even from an experienced keeper) is good information.
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I have heard of using listerine if the animal does have mouthrot. But barring terrible husbandry the chances of a boa getting mouthrot are fairly minimal. One thing after being in the hobby for long enough, you will see that there will always be many people that "know" alot of information about them but its in many instances read rather then learned by first hand experience.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

Sorry folks...but listerine works just fine...no false information there at all...although it is FAR from the best thing to use.

How is telling someone to rinse their boas mouth out monthly not false information?
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

Randy, I am surprised that someone as knowledgable as yourself could so easily forget that the listerine trees grow in most areas where boas can be found, and that while most constrictor enthusiasts believe that boas are strictly carnivores, in actuallity they do feast on the berrys of the listerine tree at monthly intervals,and can often be seen munching the fruit twice a month in breeding season!
I have personally attempted to give a boa mouth to mouth after a pinky pump accident, and although the mouth was covered in rat gut juice, I don't think it was any more dirty than some of the "ladies" I have met at local bars. I did use listerine for myself after that, but I do that anytime my mouth comes in contact with something funky...either immediately after, or when I see her in the morning at the first touch of sobering light.
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Davey Giltner

Thanks, I needed that!!

Kathy

That really was pretty good.

lol, you are one of the reasons I still love this hobby. Thanks sir.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.