Do Snake Drink Milk?

 

Sometimes during festivals, people pour milk on snakes thinking that the snake may drink the milk. It is a widespread practice.

But do snakes drink milk? No, a snake doesn’t drink milk. They drink water because they need water for their survival. Snakes may drink milk when someone forcefully dehydrates them for days, and when a snake sees a liquid, they consume it. Milk is not a unique thing; they will drink any liquid in a dehydrated state.

Snakes And Milk

There is a myth that snakes drink milk. I don’t know how this myth came into existence. In the wild, you’ll never see any snake drinking milk. 

They drink water which is a common phenomenon. It is said snakes can suck milk directly from cow breasts. 

There is no scientific evidence behind those claims. Snakes can only drink milk if they haven’t drink water for days, and they are starving. 

Starvation is the only thing that drives any animals, even humans, do certain things that we usually won’t do. 

Can I Feed Milk To Snake?

No, you should not feed milk to snakes. If you have a pet snake, then don’t feed milk to them. It is not a part of their diet and making them drink milk daily can kill them. 

If you have pet snakes make them eat what falls in their diet, e.g. rodent, small insects depending upon the size and species of the snake, determine what their food is and feed those only. 

Snake Can Inspects The Milk

It’s a common phenomenon, snakes are curious reptiles, and if they see anything new, they will inspect that.

A snake can come close to a container that has milk and examine that and may try to find out whether that is edible or not. Once, the snake knows that it’s not edible, the snake will move away from that. 

By no means that indicates that the snake is interested in the milk, It’s just simple curiousness. Once they get familiarize with the milk, they won’t inspect it next time.

Snake may use their tongue to check the milk, but that doesn’t mean that the snake is consuming the milk. Please don’t be mistaken.

Does Snake Poison React With The Milk?

Snakes don’t store their poison in their tongue. Snakes have special venom glands. When they want to use the toxin, they use it intentionally. 

They use their poison to catch their prey or to defend themselves; they won’t use their poison while drinking because it is futile and will be wastage of poison. So, even while inspecting, the snake will not use the poison.

Forcing A Snake To Drink Milk Is Inhumane

It’s inhumane to do so. They don’t drink milk, thus forcing them to do so is ugly. Snakes can become aggressive creatures if they don’t receive the right treatment.

Forcing them to drink milk will make them volatile, and they can behave aggressively. 

Animals deprived of food and water can get agitated, snakes are no exception to that. Even human act aggressively when they don’t get food for days.

Can I Pour Milk On Snake?

Pouring milk is a religious practice other than that it doesn’t help the snake by any means. The snake doesn’t need that milk.

It might look religious, but the snake doesn’t have any need for the milk. If a snake consumes the milk and can’t digest it, then the snake can die. 

So, don’t force the snake to drink the milk.

Do Female Snakes Feed Milk To Their Babies?

No snakes don’t feed milk to their babies because they don’t have mammary glands. Snakes are reptiles, and reptiles can’t feed milk to their babies. 

Only mammals can feed milk to their babies; the name mammals came because they have mammary glands. 

Mostly all baby snakes gets their food from the egg yolk. Once the babies are mature enough, the snake gives birth to lots of snakes.

Do Weak Snakes Feed On Milk?

It’s very much possible that the snakes that drink the milk are weak and malnourished. Snakes drink milk only when they are starved.

Humans remove the venom glands or fangs from these snakes so that the snake cannot harm which is a devious act in itself. Snakes need these venom glands and fangs to kill prey.

Without these, the snake can die and can also become prey to predators because they won’t be able to defend themselves.

The only way to recover from this is to give them food that is in their diet. Although the poison glands or fangs won’t return once removed; however, if they get proper care, they can survive even without the glands for quite some time. 

These snakes should not be released in the wild as they won’t survive. Keeping them in captivity, and taking proper care at all times will prolong their lifespan.

Snake Charmers Are Problematic

Snake charmers capture these snakes from various places. They think that snake reacts to music and uses an instrument to hypnotize a snake. 

However, this is a myth snake doesn’t get hypnotized by music; instead, it focuses on the movement of the instrument as these snake charmers keep on moving the instrument for capturing the snake. 

Once, the snake gets focused on the instrument, the snake charmer catches it from behind and puts the snake inside a bag. 

After that, the snake charmers removes the venom glands, fangs or stitches their mouth thus making them incapable of leading a healthy life. These snake charmers use these snakes to perform and make money from such performance.

They carry it with them wherever they go and tries to put a show over there and make money from it. This is harmful to the snake as these snakes can die because of not having proper nutrition and food. 

They can’t even go out for preying because of the lack of venom glands or fangs. 

To get rid of the snakes people sometimes call these snake charmers if they see any snakes around their house or locality and that’s how these snake charmers get their hand on those snakes. 

People think that these snake charmers have superhuman powers that help them to capture any snake that other people won’t be able to capture. 

These system is going on for hundreds of years, and even today, this is seen quite often. Although their business has decreased to a great extent in this modern era, but it didn’t stop completely.

In most of the cases, people are not aware of what these snake charmers do to a snake, and so they call these people without hesitation.

Awareness is now developing thanks to the internet and education. More and more people understand about their activities, and people are not trusting them. It is also an illegal act.

People don’t always trust a snake charmer; they call them out of necessity. They can dress up in red-ochre colour or can wear regular clothing and carries a Pungi with them that they use to subdue the snake. 

Inside a bag, they keep boxes where they put the snakes. They carry multiple snakes at once. They can also try to feed milk to a snake thinking that it is as common phenomena, thinking that snakes drink milk which is not the case.

Conclusion

Nobody should milk to snakes. This is a myth that snakes drink milk. Snake charmers capture snakes and remove their venom gland or fangs, keeps them starving, which eventually kills as a snake. 

Baby snakes don’t drink milk they survive by eating the egg yolk, and once fully mature the baby snakes comes out of their mother’s body. Reptiles can’t produce milk; only mammals can. So, snakes and milk are not compatible.