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Pet Sitters?

serpentina

serpentina

What the deuce???
Anyone ever use a pet-sitting service for their snakes? I will be going to Long Island for Christmas and have been looking into what to do with my snakes. I do not have anyone trustworthy enough to come into my home and care for them. I will only be gone 10 days tops. I know the moving will be stressful (it's an hour away) to get to this place but, I'd rather come back to healthy animals than dehydrated, sick ones. I have yet to ask my vet if they have this service. Just curious if anyone has done this before and would like to know how it went.
 
You may not have to worry about this. 10 days isn't that long for a snake to go with out food and water. If I were you, I would feed them just before you leave, make sure that the temps and humidity won't change, and increase the size of their water bowl.

I have gone on vacation and left my snakes alone for upwards of 20 days at a time. I have never had one problem with any of them. They were nice and hungry when I got back, and ate well, but nothing like dehydration or lack of nourishment problems.
 
yea, in the wild they go a while without eating, so just feedthem before you go and make sure their water dish is ful, i think for 10 days they will be fine.
 
Thanks, I will do that. I wouldn't want to bring them home infested with mites (or worse) anyway.
 
I never left mine for more than 3 or 4 days (mainly because I never had to), but I still have to agree with the other replies so far...

Then again, I'm not a very trusting person when it comes to things like this. Unless a person could document that they have tons of snake experience with no history of accidents or I knew the person from this forum or they were my own flesh and blood, I wouldn't let them near any snake of mine. Even then, if it were still just 10 days I would give them plenty of water and leave them on their own until I got back.


To me snakes would be a special case. It's not like feeding and watering a dog and making sure the backdoor closes behind you when you leave. There are too many little things, like not getting a cage door latched securely, that could go wrong. Not to mention, snakes are a type of creature that don't exactly inspire comfort and confidence in people. It's much easier to get spooked or scared with snakes than with dogs or cats or fish, which could lead to mistakes.

Just my .02 :)
 
I agree with ZWyatt.

I have this feeling like I may eventually need to hire a pet sitter, but that person will only look after the furries. The snake will be fine for the duration of any vacation I take, which is likely to be only a week- 5-7 days. For now, I have no interest in vacationing- I'd rather stay at home and clean tanks and cages. :crazy02:
 
I've actually never thought about leaving my critters for any length of time. Not because I don't care about them, but because we don't really go out of town for more then a day. I think snake owners have less to worry about then other pet owners though because our critters don't have to have the daily attention and care that other animals do. (As was stated by others in previous posts! :) )

Where I live, less then an hour away from Death Valley, I would be very concerned about any of my critters if I had to be gone for more then a day. If the AC (swamp cooler in our case) goes out as it has done in the past, I could lose my entire collection if I wasn't here to take action. Scary thought when I think about how much I have invested in this hobby. I have actually lost two entire colonies of mice because the cooler was broken for about 4-5 hours last summer. Not pretty or nose friendly and the poor little critters. The snakes faired better because they are set up in the very middle of the house where the temps aren't as likely to be scorching if the AC goes out again. I also toss ice in with the mice now when I know I'll be gone all day, to keep them cool just in case.

If I lived in a real house, I doubt I would be as concerned as I am now. Once we get a place of our own, we won't have to rely upon management to repair the broken, faulty equipment that they are too lazy and too tight-fisted to replace.

So, in most cases there shouldn't be a problem with leaving the snakes for a week or two as everyone else has stated. There have been one or two times where our snakes went an extra 5-7 days without food because our mice had no litters and the pet store we sometimes buy feeders from is out and they don't seem too bothered by it.

Jenn :)
 
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