Reptile & Amphibian Forums

can snakes be "potty trained" to only go in one place or at least only in the cage or are snakes "programed" only the instinct to breed and eat.

sorry if it sounds condesending, i love snakes its just im to lazy to think of a way to make it sound better.
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my addiction:
2 ball pythons (lazlo and izzy)
1 amelenistic corn snake (maizy

I don't know about toilet training snakes. I've heard with some reptiles, placing them in lukewarm water stimulates them to "go", thus ensuring they won't during an outing or handling session. Also with snakes, close supervision crawling on a lawn can encourage them to defacate, after which they won't do it again for a little while.

As for just training snakes, that's tricky. Since they're solitary animals unlike dogs or horses, they don't give a rats ass about how their handler feels and don't want to please. And unlike animals you can train by food reward such as cats, all their intellect goes out the window at feeding time, and training then becomes a moot point when they're not thinking.

But they can learn by association such as learning that their human is a safe warm place to explore and thus desirable to be around (or at least tolerate) and they can pick up cues to associate that when their person does this, it's feeding time.

I've heard stories about a burmese python who knew it was feeding time when a strobe light started flashing, a snake (forget the species) that consistently came when its owner gently patted the surface it was on, and I've read an astounding account of a racer that when its owner dangled a mouse a respectful distance away, it followed, over a few obstacles, climbed up to it's owners arm and then ate the mouse with no fear or feeding errors.

Toilet training a snake however, stumps me.
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0.1 chickens (Condor)
0.2 dog mutts (half ownership, only mine when they misbehave, Lucy & Amy)
0.1 Halflinger horse (Crissy)
0.1 Normal phase California Kingsnake (Sophia)
1.1 parents
Still searching for 1.0 WC human

i already know about the lukewarm water, it doesnt really work with my ball pythons... the cornsnake however, she lifted her rear out of the water and went on me!
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my addiction:
2 ball pythons (lazlo and izzy)
1 amelenistic corn snake (maizy

Using lukewarm water can be dangerous. That is because for many people, water still feels kind of cool when it is 90° and it doesn't feel lukewarm until it is over 100°F. Water not much above 100° could kill a snake.

Use a thermometer, not your finger, to test the water temperature if you plan on doing this.
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Chris Harrison
Does anyone else here think that these scrolling signature lines are stupid?

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0.1 chickens (Condor)
0.2 dog mutts (half ownership, only mine when they misbehave, Lucy & Amy)
0.1 Halflinger horse (Crissy)
0.1 Normal phase California Kingsnake (Sophia)
1.1 parents
Still searching for 1.0 WC human

Snakes sometimes learn habits and pick up on consistent things, but potty training a snake is a bit far fetched I think. The only way I know for sure that one of my snakes will defecate is if it's in the bathtub with lukewarm water. This never fails if I'm soaking one to try and get a small patch of skin that didn't shed, a minute into the process they'll defecate.

(rolls eyes) my snakes are trained to go to the bathroom as soon as they see a camera.

I don't think it's possible to potty train a snake. As others have mentioned, they will learn to associate things certain events and behaviors. For example, my gopher snake associates brown paper bags with food. If I have a bag in the snake's line of sight, it gets so aggressive I can barely get it out of its cage to put it in the bag with the food item so it can eat. Any other time it's so docile that I'll let anyone- and I mean ANYONE- handle it, but let it see that bag and its whole temperment changes.