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Proper Snake Handling

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In this video, proper handling techniques will be demonstrated.

Show Transcript

hi this is Brian with the ESC 20 living science material center today we're going to discuss the proper handling of snakes that you can get from our plants enter okay so here we come to the most important part we'd like to remind you to wash your hands before and after handling the reptiles so I'm sure everybody knows how to do this but it's good to use a a good soap that cuts Grease and you want to wash long enough to cover all of the surfaces today we're going to discuss the proper way to handle some of the reptiles that you get from us so they come in these nice plastic cages with Clan but keep them from escaping they need these plants need to stay on at all times so that the snakes cannot get out of the boxes so you can just open the boxes up and reach in and get the snakes if you're worried about the snakes biting all of these snakes are fairly tame but you can touch them on the nose and that usually lets them know that you know you're not feeding them a key Point again is to wash your hands before you pick them up to make sure there's no sense of rodents on your hands this little guy is a Mexican milk snake they are found throughout the South portions of Texas and they're usually very secretive at night even though their colors are flashy they like to live on the ground and they will just gently you know crawl through your hands but if they get loose on the floor they're actually pretty quick and they'll go for you know a dark spot underneath the desk drawer underneath the countertop so I always make sure you you know I have control of animal you just hold them gently and make sure they feel supported you can see their tail will wrap around my fingers and that's one of the ways that they help you know that they like to feel secure so that wrap around my hands to make sure that secure and when you pass it from one person to another just do it gently snakes are pretty tough but you definitely don't want to drop them on the floor so just be cautious when you're handling them to put it back you can gently set it in the cage and it will crawl to this half of the cage where the lid is permanently affixed and they can't really get out there it goes back to the back you close the lid of course there's no tail or no head sticking in the Gap where it gets squished you squeeze squeeze it down there's velcro to help keep the lids and coming up that again these clamps are very important that's what helps really secure the lid on there so that was a Mexican milk snake will recreate recap really quickly this is going to be a Great Plains rat snake you can take your clamps off open the lid do you want to touch it with something besides can you can use a towel or you can use a napkin or you know you could even use you know the top of the clip I just gently you can touch it on the nose that way the snake knows it's not feeding time and if you don't want to reach your hand all the way back in there to get it can gently let the snake come to you now it's up in the front and it's easier to reach in and get so this makes going in the shed so he's maybe not as colorful as before but again it Great Plains rat snake they are comfortable living up in trees you can see his tail trying to wrap around me that's his anchor he likes to feel anchored to wherever he is now these versus the Mexican milk snake these trees baby snakes live up in trees and with their tail they have almost a prehensile tail so you can see it can wrap around me and these snakes feel more comfortable being held cuz they used to being off the ground they are pretty sturdy and it will just climb right back up into my hands and if it doesn't if it doesn't feel like it's it's wanting to climb right now you know just try to keep the body supported if it wraps around you that stuff play normal again I like to feel secure I will let him go back in the cage and we'll go to a corn snake neck the corn snake is basically the exact same snake but the ones from Texas aren't nearly as shiny and pretty and colorful and these snakes again the Great Plains rat snakes live throughout most of the state they occur from Brownsville all the way up Dallas put the clamps back on and now we have a corn snake that was just open the lid this snake has recently eaten so I'm going to do something that we don't suggest and that is I'm going to go ahead and handle a snake when it's full can you see the big bolt in the belly right between my two hands you see how it's nice and fat right there so that's where it just ate a meal and we typically like to and suggest that you leave the snakes in the cage during that time because it needs to to digest snakes are cold-blooded and it does take them a couple of days to digest and handling them during this time can basically give them an upset stomach when some stomach acids maybe you know my great up up in the air I guess we just don't want that so you just be real gentle with them and they will crawl around and it will sort of explore its little environment and and explore the the you know the classroom and the different students you can see that it almost always the snakes almost always will have their tail wrapped around you and that's just normal that's the way they feel supported so again this is actually an albino corn snake so we're as in the wild you would see it with a lot of black patterning this snake they take all the black patterning away it's called a melanistic so the black pattern is gone and you're left with these white the white patterns they're very inquisitive that tongue is going nonstop so the tongue is a really cool part of snake it actually is very sensitive they can taste smells out of there so as the tongue goes out it takes up little smell molecules out of the atmosphere and it brings them back to Oregon they have in their mouth so the tongue comes up to the top of their mouth and it can actually taste what what's in the air and that's one of the ways they find food and that's one of the reasons is very important to wash your hands because if you hands smell like mice and that tongue picks up the scent of mouse on your hand even though it's not an aggressive snake there almost always hungry snakes are always looking for food so if your hand smells like mice and it's sense your hand is warm and Alive sometimes it will bite you wanting food and that's just not pleasant for you or the snake so make sure you wash your hands will let this guy go back in the cage and once you're sure that there's no body parts left to get squished by the door and just slide the door closed put your clamps on and now this as long as the clamps are on there this is escape-proof It's bolted on the plexiglass is bolted on the cage you got your clamps we actually have another little Locking System here so that during transport they are totally secure corn snakes are not from Texas they're from further east up and down the East Coast from Florida up towards North Carolina now we're switching continents and we're going to Africa the last make and probably the biggest snake we have our a is a ball python and ball pythons they're named for one of their behaviors and that is the coil up like a ball so if the snake sort of looking at you funny you're worried about it you know you can again touch down the nose with you know a towel or a glove but typically after you do that they know it's not feeding time and you can just reach in and pull it out so you can see it's a little bit heavier by snake it's a sort of shorter and fatter and it's it's heavier than the other than the other snakes we've been using and I'm not sure this one's going to do it but they have a strategy of coiling up in a real Tight Ball and they hide their head in the middle so when they're doing that that sort of normal for a ball python to curl up in a ball and they do it because their head is the most sensitive part of the body and they want to protect their head so I'm going to set this guy unless we can get them to curl up in a ball but they're so used to people that I don't think it's going to coil up yeah he's I don't think he's going to coil up so I'll set him down so he wants to protect his head but they don't have arms or legs he's right so they basically their head up in a big ball and they protect it so I don't know why but there's a predator they don't want their head to be damaged and I one of the most important things to remember is because you've been handling these snakes it's time to go wash our hands okay so we'd like to remind you to wash your hands before and after handling the reptiles and you want to wash your hands with a good and make sure that you watch them for about 15 seconds to get any dirt or smells or snake stuff off your hands so rubber real good I'm 15 you can sing Happy Birthday and there's all sorts of different ways to make sure you get a good wash do you want to eat the scrubby pad you can if it really dirty so again thanks for watching the video about proper snake-handling I hope you enjoy all of the reptiles in your classroom and if you have any questions or comments just give us a call thank you very much

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