Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have some babies shedding out for the first time this week and it's very dry here in northern Minnesota, so I've been misting the tubs with a spray bottle every couple of days. There are several babies that freak out when I do this. They start the full on, open mouth hissing and don't stop until I leave the room. I've never experienced this before, because I've never had a litter this late in the year. For the adults, I just dump some water in the cage. This is a first for the misting. I thought maybe the sound of the spray bottle at first, but they can't hear, so who knows? Maybe they think it's the drool of a predator, lol.
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Jason Dowell

I live in central Illinois so the winter brings in very dry cool air, simple fix is using newspaper or paper towels for the substrate if possible, I find that using something like aspen can get the cage dusty.....a dry animal is an unhappy animal.

Best wishes.

Chris

The reaction you are getting from the babies is not caused by the water you are spraying, but the air displacement. Baby snakes are hard wired to assosiate sudden air movements with a bird flapping its wings over it. You will get the same result if you fan them with a newspaper.
Mike

Thanks for the info. It makes sense.
Very astute. Did you come up with that on your own?
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Jason Dowell

I experience the same thing - lots of pissy babies when spraying , any month of the year. What I've done to minimize this is switching from a regular spray bottle, to a sprayer with a hose nozzle, so that I get closer to the substrate without spraying the Boa . I also use hot water (sprays out warm) so that there isn't any temperature shock.
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Snake room janitor

The hissing is no big deal, but i would be misting atleast twice a day.
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Richard Ceniceros