When Should I do deep cleaning in my snakes cage

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Derpy opal

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Hello I’m a new snake owner and don’t know how long until my snakes cage needs deep cleaning like removing everything and replacing the bedding and cleaning all his hides and bowls please help me out

and right now I’m feeding him every week is that too often?
 
Hey, as long as your spot cleaning 1's and 2's within a day or two of seeing them you should be able to get away with a deep clean every 2 or so months.

Hatchlings you can usually feed every 7-10 days and adults every 2 weeks if you are feeding appropriate sized meals.
 
Hey, as long as your spot cleaning 1's and 2's within a day or two of seeing them you should be able to get away with a deep clean every 2 or so months.

Hatchlings you can usually feed every 7-10 days and adults every 2 weeks if you are feeding appropriate sized meals.

How can you give an answer like that when you don't even know what species the snake is??? Some of my large pythons only get fed 5-10 times per year. Other snakes need to be fed morre than weekly even as adults. The frequency of cleaning depends on so many variables such as the type of setup, species, time of year, etc etc. it can range from weekly to never.

Even with pythons which need about the least frequency of feeding of any Australian snake people are likely to keep, I usually feed more than weekly as juveniles and there are no adult pythons I would feed every two weeks on average, though it varies seasonally and depending on sex, size of feed, whether or not the snake is retroactively active, etc etc.
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Hello I’m a new snake owner and don’t know how long until my snakes cage needs deep cleaning like removing everything and replacing the bedding and cleaning all his hides and bowls please help me out

and right now I’m feeding him every week is that too often?

As I said above, there are so many variables here and all you've said is that you have a male snake. In reality, most keepers with more than about 5-10 snakes spot clean fairly often but don't do a complete clean more than yearly. It's easy to jump on social media and virtue signal, but in reality people don't actually do it, other than a few very small scale keepers. Of course, if you're using paper towel substrate and an extremely basic tub system, then every clean is a complete clean and they often get done weekly (there's basically nothing to clean so everything gets cleaned if you clean anything). If it looks and smells clean, it's fine. There's no 'if you don't do a complete clean within 6 months the boogy man comes and cuts your legs off' phenomenon. I definitely don't recommend you do it, but even if you use loose substrate and only spot clean and don't ever clean thoroughly, your snake will probably be fine after several years without a 'deep clean'. It's not entirely unusual for some of mine to go a full year and I see plenty in other collections going much longer.
 
Make sure that your cleaning out the the water bowls weekly to avoid bacteria than can make your snake sick.
 
Make sure that your cleaning out the the water bowls weekly to avoid bacteria than can make your snake sick.

I totally agree that ideally you'll do water at least weekly and I'm personally good with water, but I know plenty of people who routinely aim for biweekly, and also plenty (including some breeders who get great results) who only clean water bowls monthly or less (sometimes much less) and only topping them up when they're low and often letting them run dry for lengthy periods.

I definitely don't advocate being slack in this way and I've sometimes even insisted on cleaning water bowls myself in friends' collections because I just can't stand seeing them with no water, filthy water or water bowls I know haven't been cleaned for several months, but I haven't seen it making snakes sick, even when they're forced to drink visibly filthy water for weeks or months on end.
 
I totally agree that ideally you'll do water at least weekly and I'm personally good with water, but I know plenty of people who routinely aim for biweekly, and also plenty (including some breeders who get great results) who only clean water bowls monthly or less (sometimes much less) and only topping them up when they're low and often letting them run dry for lengthy periods.

I definitely don't advocate being slack in this way and I've sometimes even insisted on cleaning water bowls myself in friends' collections because I just can't stand seeing them with no water, filthy water or water bowls I know haven't been cleaned for several months, but I haven't seen it making snakes sick, even when they're forced to drink visibly filthy water for weeks or months on end.
I guess so, especially when you think about what snakes are drinking in the wild..... but I like to be on the safe side when it comes to taking care of my snakes ;)
 
I guess so, especially when you think about what snakes are drinking in the wild..... but I like to be on the safe side when it comes to taking care of my snakes ;)

I also like to make sure they always have clean water, but I'm not going make up fictional stories. I'm actually not entirely sure if I've ever given a snake any benefit by cleaning their bowls more than monthly (unless they **** in them of course). It surely can't hurt to be diligent but I've never seen anything empirical to indicate any benefit.

On the topic of water, I've raised many snakes to over a year and a fair few to two years without giving them water bowls, just keeping them on moist substrate. Works great! (I never suggest it to anyone though, because while getting it right gives great results, getting it wrong will definitely cause problems). I also basically never give lizards water bowls and I've bred multiple generations of various lizard species without them ever seeing standing water.
 
Sdaji, could I F10 my water bowls?

It's pointless and expensive, but if you want to, sure.

Dish detergent and hot water is better. If you want to sterilise them bleach is cheaper and better. If for some reason you are in a hurry to sterilise them and don't care if the sterilisation isn't done properly and you don't want to bother properly rinsing them and you don't mind wasting money, then sure, F10 is your friend!
 
F10 also has a contact time of about 20 minutes & is also a known skin irratant. So you would need to ensure that you remove any residue. If using non porous ceramic dishes, you will remove any pathogens with just hot water anyway as mentioned.
 
F10 also has a contact time of about 20 minutes & is also a known skin irratant. So you would need to ensure that you remove any residue. If using non porous ceramic dishes, you will remove any pathogens with just hot water anyway as mentioned.


Yeah F10 is pretty stupid. If you want to disinfect properly it's garbage and if you want to clean it's garbage. You'll disinfect approximately as well using dish drops and hot water, with the bonus of it being cheaper, quicker and safer. The only benefit of F10 is that it's relatively low toxicity and it doesn't need to be rinsed... sort of... but I mean, if you're going to wash something just give it a rinse. If you're washing something like water bowls you definitely want to rinse anyway. I had some F10 about 10.years ago and ended up throwing it away because I literally never found any application for it which either metho, bleach or dish drops wouldn't do a better job. People just use F10 because they don't understand how these chemicals work and F10 is marketed as a reptile product and the others are cheap supermarket items.
 
Yeah F10 is pretty stupid
F10 does the trick for me, it removes the smell in the enclosures and is effective viruses, bacteria, fungi and spores, plus it has no harmful effects on people, animals, surfaces or equipment.
 
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Yeah F10 is pretty stupid. If you want to disinfect properly it's garbage and if you want to clean it's garbage. You'll disinfect approximately as well using dish drops and hot water, with the bonus of it being cheaper, quicker and safer. The only benefit of F10 is that it's relatively low toxicity and it doesn't need to be rinsed... sort of... but I mean, if you're going to wash something just give it a rinse. If you're washing something like water bowls you definitely want to rinse anyway. I had some F10 about 10.years ago and ended up throwing it away because I literally never found any application for it which either metho, bleach or dish drops wouldn't do a better job. People just use F10 because they don't understand how these chemicals work and F10 is marketed as a reptile product and the others are cheap supermarket items.
I wouldn't use F10 to clean water bowls either, wash them in soap and water and/or put them out in the sun for bleaching. My first bottle of F10 ran out of date years ago but had to buy a new bottle recently because the OEH rules demand it of breeders selling at expo's which I am doing this year
 
F10 does the trick for me, it removes the smell in the enclosures and is effective viruses, bacteria, fungi and spores, plus it has no harmful effects on people, animals, surfaces or equipment.
I would be cautious using F10 around any animals with chemo sensative skin such as reptiles. It is designed to decon surfaces, recovery cages in vet hospitals. It claims to be non hazardous but it is infact a skin irratant. Just read the msds. If using it on water or feed utensils rinse it off thouroughly. It is useless anyway unless left on for recomended 20 minutes
 
A number of the comments made are incorrect and very misleading for new or intending keepers reading this thread. The following corrections can be readily verified with a little research.

F10 is not specifically designed for reptiles. It was formulated for general use in veterinary practices to overcome the problems associated with using bleach as a disinfectant i.e. fumes, irritation to skin, eyes and airways, degradation of non-target materials, and quickly neutralised by extraneous organic material present.

Here is one assessment of F10 that is supported by numerous other scientific institutions and research. Scientists in the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions in WA established a set of Standard Operating Procedure for “Managing Disease Risk in Wildlife Management”. This document states (p 9) that F10: “is more effective than most other disinfectants and is less of an irritant. Use at 1:500 dilution for 10 minutes is sufficient for ordinary applications and won’t degrade trap material. Where highly resistant non-enveloped viruses are suspected, 1:125 dilution >20 minutes is recommended.”
Note: Parvo virus in dogs is a highly resistant virus and therefore 20 mins is recommended for veterinary use where this pathogen is likely to be present. F10 effectively destroys the vast majority of pathogens within the first minute.

F10 is not a skin irritant. The manufacturer’s MSDS for F10, which meets Worksafe Australia requirements, states eye irritant as the only hazard. In the safety procedures, this document recommend removing and cleaning of contaminated clothing or watches etc. before reusing these, and rinsing affected areas [of the body] with soapy water. Clearly this is to avoid accidentally rubbing of the product into the eyes. However, there are some other MSDS’s produced for F10, which do not meet Worksafe standards, that appear to have interpreted this to indicate that F10 must be a skin irritant, and therefore incorrectly state that it as being such. If you want a real skin irritant, check out the MSDS’s for household bleach

Warm soapy water and elbow grease will remove the majority (but not all) of the biological agents that can transmit disease. Empirical investigations into the effectiveness of mechanical cleaning, when done thoroughly, estimate it removes around 90-95% of biological pathogenic agents. Chemical disinfectants used on surfaces that have been properly cleaned can result in removing in excess of 99% of biological agent.

I researched this topic for our local herp society a number of years ago. If anyone is interested I can try and find my notes and post the general findings for different types of disinfectants.
 
No one said it was specifically designed for reptiles. I said that it was marketed to reptile keepers, commercially pushed on them. That's not to say it's reptile keepers exclusively.

I'm not sure if it was deliberate or unintentional, but your description of chemical and mechanical cleaning is misleading. With Mr. Corona making this issue topical, it's worth knowing that washing with soap/detergent and water is more effective than F10 (or hand sanitiser) unless you're going to soak the item (or skin) for an extended period, longer than you would spend washing yoir hands or an item.

'Mechanical cleaning'/not using chemicals shouldn't be confused with using soap or detergent. These work to remove things as well as denature them. Disinfectants primarily or exclusively work by denaturing (as opposed to removing) things. For example, if you use hand sanitiser the germs are still on your hands, but they're destroyed. Washing with soap removes them from your hands so even if they are not destroyed, they are removed. F10 requires more time than people typically give it to work, making it generally useless as used by regular untrained hobbyists. Washing with soap or detergent is generally effective.

F10 may be appropriate for vets who know how to use it and have unreliable vet nurses who can follow orders but are as stupid and unreliable as typical vet nurses (let's be honest, any of us who has spent much time around vets knows exactly what I'm talking about), but especially for hobbyists, F10 is pointless and generally counterproductive due to providing a false sense of security/sanitation.
 
No one said it was specifically designed for reptiles. I said that it was marketed to reptile keepers, commercially pushed on them. That's not to say it's reptile keepers exclusively.

I'm not sure if it was deliberate or unintentional, but your description of chemical and mechanical cleaning is misleading. With Mr. Corona making this issue topical, it's worth knowing that washing with soap/detergent and water is more effective than F10 (or hand sanitiser) unless you're going to soak the item (or skin) for an extended period, longer than you would spend washing yoir hands or an item.

'Mechanical cleaning'/not using chemicals shouldn't be confused with using soap or detergent. These work to remove things as well as denature them. Disinfectants primarily or exclusively work by denaturing (as opposed to removing) things. For example, if you use hand sanitiser the germs are still on your hands, but they're destroyed. Washing with soap removes them from your hands so even if they are not destroyed, they are removed. F10 requires more time than people typically give it to work, making it generally useless as used by regular untrained hobbyists. Washing with soap or detergent is generally effective.

F10 may be appropriate for vets who know how to use it and have unreliable vet nurses who can follow orders but are as stupid and unreliable as typical vet nurses (let's be honest, any of us who has spent much time around vets knows exactly what I'm talking about), but especially for hobbyists, F10 is pointless and generally counterproductive due to providing a false sense of security/sanitation.
Okay lets say all your points are true and undeniable what do you think of products like Repti Hand as a sanitiser?
 

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