Been awhile since I’ve made a post, I come with a health related question regarding certain scented items.
How are reptiles with things like candles, incense and oil diffusers? I have a friend of mine who has a very small bird, and they are unable to use a large variety of scented items because of the birds lungs being so small and fragile. This extends from candles to certain types of cookware. Birds are different than say a snake or gecko, but it did make me curious if that’s something I should be aware of when caring for reptiles (perhaps even more so around amphibians too?)
Now obviously I’m not planning to go spray cologne on a reptile or hot box them in a room full of scented smoke. But I’m unsure of how careful one would need to be. The aforementioned friend takes extreme lengths and has a house rule of no wicked candles, incense or certain cookware and spraying any kind of cleaning supplies or perfume must be done in a completely separate room.
Are certain oils particularly toxic to reptiles? Anything that should be avoided entirely when keeping them?
I can’t tell you if its medically necessary, but I do the same as your friend. Its easy in my home to avoid these things, so I do, but I’m not sure how dangerous those fumes are, so hopefully someone else can chime in!
I know that a lot of -if not all- “essential oils” are toxic to a variety of animals.
With other scented things I typically just avoid it outright with my reptiles even if it would be deemed safe because I really just don’t want to find out the hard way. My biggest concern is respiratory issues since that can turn fatal for reptiles without quick treatment, specifically for snakes since their lung structure is unique. Not to mention that reptiles could easily absorb any chemicals from said scented items through their skin and effect them negatively that way.
If you have your reptiles in their own dedicated room that has a barrier of some kind from the rest of the house, it may be safe to use scented items as long as its not within direct vicinity of the reptile room.
I try to avoid using any scented items or strong chemicals around all my animals. I don’t know that much (if any) actual scientific research has been done on how such products affect reptiles, but since it seems that there is at least the potential for such things to be harmful, I’d rather err on the side of caution.