Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This tip primarily applies to those keepers who use rack systems. However, this method can still work for keepers who use different types of caging.

For each rack bay, have two tubs. So for each animal, I have two tubs. When cleaning, you can simply remove the snake from the dirty tub and put it into the clean tub. Once you have finished cleaning your animals, you can take all the dirty tubs (at once) outside and clean them and then they will be ready for the next cleaning. The spare tubs are easy to store since they are stackable.

I find this cleaning approach helpful because I do not have running water in my snake room and going back and forth (snake room to hose, back to snake room) for each tub cleaning is very time-consuming. My cleaning time is reduced considerably with this approach.

It also works well when you don’t have time to clean a snake. For example, I clean all my reptile enclosures the day before I go out of town on a business trip. But it never fails that 30 minutes before I leave, someone soils its cage. With this approach, I can quickly put the animal in a clean cage and still make my flight.

I hope you found this tip useful. Do you have any timesaving ideas? I’d love to hear.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

Absolutely the initial expense of the extra tubs is nothing compare to the time you save.
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Adrian
AFR
http://imageevent.com/afreptiles

I have extra hides and soak the soiled ones in a bucket of soapy water to "losen them up a bit" before washing them.

I also use newsprint and have a spray bottle of soapy water and one with clean water. Many times you can set the animal in a new hide, dump the paper and litely spray the tub, wipe it down then hit it with a little clean water to get the rest of the soap residue off, new paper and return the animal. All in less than two minutes. Uses a few paper towels, but they are cheap and you need no running water/drain.

Thanks for the tip. Keep them coming!

Al