Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I thought I'd post this- we recently had an emergency with a baby corn snake. We had temporarily used duct tape to patch a hole in the top of the cage...well, you can guess- we came home and found the poor thing hopelessly doubled over and stuck to the tape. Because her skin is so delicate, peeling the tape off was out of the question- it probably would have torn her skin off before it let go. In a panic, I jumped on the internet, and found the solution on an obscure little page- olive oil! We used a q-tip and liberally drenched the attached area, and kept gently wiping at it with the q-tip. It took about ten minutes, but quite quickly, and almost all at once, the tape lost its stickiness, began to let go, and didn't even leave any residue behind! My wife and I went from tragedy to triumph in about a ten minute period. Afterwards, I gently bathed the snake in warm water and got most all of the olive oil off within a few minutes. She's doing fine now- a little worn out from her struggles, but overall she looks good. I just wanted to post this as a warning and as a resource- I really couldn't think of what to use that wasn't totally toxic, and the oliver oil worked beautifully! (for some reason while we were cleaning her, though, I kept thinking of linguine...hmmm Anyhow, if anyone else has this happen, you've read my two cents worth- I hope this helps someone else.

I had the same thing happen to my Western Diamondback when she was just a little 12-14" pup.
We used Baby oil to get her loosed,nows she`s 30" and meaner then 9 yards of you know where LOL!!

NO MORE EXPOSED DUCT-TAPE in my tanks !!

T/