I’m really, really enjoying your informative posts from peoples asks and I thought maybe you could help me with my long question? I live in New Zealand where we don’t have ANY snakes, yet due to media etc I’ve managed to grow up with a healthy fear of snakes. I recently started following reptiblr blogs because I like lizards, but these obviously came with lots of snakes; I’ve started seeing how cute snakes could actually be, thanks to the love that their owners share in blog posts (all the booping and beeping!!). I’m now comfortable with snakes existing (and obviously, unless I travel, this is never going to be an issue for me in New Zealand), I’m no longer worried about their quick movements, I’m no longer worried about their possible venomousness, but I realised that one thing still freaks me out … snake teeth. And now I know why! I realised that I was scared of snakes because if one bit me, I don’t know how to un-attach them without hurting or breaking off their teeth! Turns out I’m not ‘scared’ of snakes, I’m scared of accidentally hurting a snake!! How do most pet snakes mouths/teeth work? If I ever found myself in a situation being bitten by a snake, how does one A) not panic and slap it off and B) dislodge it safely (for the snake, and me)? Thank you in advance if you can enlighten me on this subject :)
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Oh man! I’m glad you’re working through your phobia and that you’re identifying what you’re afraid of! (That’s actually like, my favorite technique for dealing with any issue- break it down into its component parts and address them as best as you can.)
So. Snake teeth. How do they work? With the exception of arboreal snakes, the common pet snakes are going to have very small teeth. They’ll be thin and narrow to hold onto prey. Arboreal snakes have longer teeth because if you’re going after birds like many do naturally, you need to have long teeth that can help you get a grip. But! Most common pet snakes are terrestrial (or at least mostly terrestrial). Their teeth look pretty terrifying when in the skull, but… well, here’s two ball pythons for examples.
Their teeth are curved backwards, but they aren’t the huge recurved fangs that a pit viper will have. What this means is that they will have a good grip and that grip is hard to break manually without hurting the snake. However, it’s not too hard to convince them to let go. You can do it with common kitchen supplies! All you need is vinegar! Just dribble a little vinegar in front of/along their snout, they’ll let go. If you don’t have vinegar, a little alcohol will work the same. The smell bothers them and they let up. You can also try spraying them in the face with water or running them under some water, but it’s a lot easier to just get some vinegar in front of their nose than it is to get a whole snake under the faucet. However, most snakes will let go on their own. They’re usually pretty good at realizing that they have Done Goofed.
I hope you get to meet a nice friendly snake someday!
