just an update for anyone who might care

[kala83]

Loki my dear sweet ball python boy at home is doing a lot better I have been leeting him conserve his energy and just rest up been working quite a few reptile people here in my lcoal area.

and hav gotten his cage up to a nice level of warmth and humidity for him so it can help him shed his skin better. Since I know that’s going to really be key for him...and getting all fully healed up.

but after seeing his first shed after the burn incident it took a lot of stress of my shoulders, since he is not feeling all that well I had to assist him a bit with the shed but he still has some skin around his face that needs to go away. But some really nice gentlemen at a local pet store gave me some great advise for how to take care of the dry skin up by his face just giving him a nice lil hidey place with frog moss and putting water in that a lil once a day and keeping it close aside from a small cut made in the corner for it....they said would help him with his sheds quite a lot. And with skin issues with snakes I figure that’s probably the most important thing. Him not eating that much right does not concern me as much since I can increase his eating once he has gotten to feeling better.


lol just me and my boyfriend are a lil too used to furry animals like my hamster and gerbils that HAVE to eat all the time or serious stuff happens (are not very used to something that can if need be go a while without food like a snake) hopefully transitioning him to frozen once he heals will go well.


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[Tsubaki]

Glad he is doing well, i like the little dot on his lip :) He will start eating better when he is comfortable.

[kala83]

I have sad news to annouce tonight.:( so after several long months of trying to take care of loki as best i could after acidentally find that he had thermal burns I am very sad to say he has ended up passing on. I feel fairly guilty for what went on I know I did everything I could to keep him in the best health possible. But it was not really enough. What saddens me more was I did not go into this not knowing ANYTHING about snakes I actually had known a fair amount about them and tried to do everything I felt I need to ...to give a snake a good home. And aside from that I did something to injure him by sheer acident I believe that I did give him a good home I mean I gave him a home gave him heat, when he got sick I took care of him.
I Just really ended up bonding with him very strongly and losing him was a really hard blow. I can't tell for sure that he is gone but he is not moving and he does not seem to be breating either.

I would like to try and have another snake again.But honestly I feel like I should wait to do this.......reading up on the subject more then I did before making sure I really do have the best set up I can give him and spending the extra money on that before hand....that’s what’s important to me right now.

I think the hardiest thing about it was that I had ended up really bonding with him a great deal he was hardly if ever aggressive toward me he was sweet and loving and I feel like he genuinely knew that I felt bad for what had happened to him and was trying as best i could to mother him back to health. I am not going to go as far as saying that it was the breeders fault....cause I don't believe that at all. But I never asked when I got him if he had ever eaten frozen thawed since I was trying to feed him that way since he came home.

if I end up buying from a store or breeder again I really want to know that, that snake has eaten frozen thawed and will do so again without issues. Cause even when he was in better health trying to get him to eat was never something easily done.

I am going to give myself a six month period of grieving his loss and But if if anyone does know breeders that DO feed frozen thawed and that would have snakes available in that time period or any reptile shows that snakes like that would be present. Feel free to tell me and let me know of it. I hope I can learn from my mistakes and forgive myself for the mistakes I made with him.

I Know I was fairly hard on myself about a lot of what went on. But I really do think I did as much as any person really and truly could do.

[DDW]

I am really sorry to hear this. I know how it is to loose someone/something you love (especially pets)

At any expo or breeder, just be sure to ask what any animal is used to eating.

Just a question, did you have a thermostat hooked up to the heat source?

[AlexCrazy]

So sorry for yours loss. I know what you feel. I did everything for my dog to get better but it just did not work.
It depends on each of us how long we want to wait.. Just feel sure about your next friend.. Do your homework.. And you can start over...
Last but not least.. If there is a heaven.. Let him be there... Watching over you and your knew friend when the time comes :)

[Rattlehead]

Sorry for your loss, so sad to read this. I think you'll give love and dedication to a snake buddy, and you'll be prepared with the experience gained

[kala83]

I think i will stick to using at heat lamp lol just due to the whole experince made me parnoid about using a heat pad and if the heat lamp is a good enough size it seems to me like it work just fine.

I know he knew how much I cared about him he really wanted mom't attension when I had him out....and he was really nice and affectionate. Sadly just dealing with losses is a fact of life. I got him out of the cage and my boyfriend and some friends of mine are going to cremate him......sometime tonight or sometime this week.
I think it will work better cause I would be too afraid to bury him in the back yard I know the cats around here would try to dig him up and fool with him if given the chance too. And that's the last thing I need to see right now.

[DDW]

It doesn't matter what kind of heat source you use, I recommend strongly to use a thermostat with any heat source. A heat lamp is fine as long as proper humidity and temps can be maintained.

I know the hardest part for me is when they get old and you have to decide when quality of life isn't good enough to eep them with us. Especially since a lot of our animals tend to outlive general life expectancies. :( sometimes that decision is even harder than the loss itself because you hold a life in your hands.

Sorry for that... I've had a lot of losses of loved pets...

[kala83]

oh yeah so have ll and its neve an easy thing to do...... and a fair portio of my pets are small pocket pets and typically they only live about 2 years...so have to deal with that quite a bit.

I would love to use a thermostat but the one I got does not seem to be a good fit when I got it would not set the temps at the proper level I think finding something else.....and doing more research is probably a better way to go.
I am un sure if I want to try again with a ball python or try doing a corn snake next time...I have heard corn snakes can be good firs time snakes as well.

[DDW]

You can probably see that I have mostly long lived animals which makes it that much more hard to loss them especially when I spend a lot of my time with them. I get very emotional attached to almost all animals I come across:/ one of my faults if you can call it that.

[kala83]

lol I do it too even with smaller animals I should know better not to...do so ....and the fact I am going to school for veterinary technician training right now does not make that fact very much easier on me either.

[DDW]

Oh, I was considering becoming a vet as well. However, I don't know if I could handle doing the surgery stuff or putting the animals down. And I would get fed up with the people who refuse to do what is asked of them to improve the life of the animal. I'm not good with many people:/

but good luck in your studies :)

[kala83]

Oh, I was considering becoming a vet as well. However, I don't know if I could handle doing the surgery stuff or putting the animals down. And I would get fed up with the people who refuse to do what is asked of them to improve the life of the animal. I'm not good with many people:/

but good luck in your studies :)
yeah even just being a tech is super hard, before I went to physical schools part of what was required for some was to volunteer or at least work in a clinic for some period of time so I did that for a little bit of time.

and even then when I saw just how many times dog or cats or any kind of animal would come in and not end up being able to come back in....and it was hard to see but usually in that kind of scenario it was usually the better thing for the animals.And their long run health.

Just like with one of my long term pet rats right now, he grown a really large tumour on the side of his body and I have been trying to get him to go into the vet to have it looked at and just see if anything can be done about it at all for a while now....but I got hired on at a restaurant here in town only to get un justly fired from the job in a matter of a few weeks.

so every time i tried to get a hold of the vet office and try to see if I could schedule to come in and have him looked at my financial situation would change into a different situation.

Luckily I just got hired on a a Hospice Nurse care place in town and have a super good feeling about this job. So lol I can finally after months of trying to get him to go in....CAN now.
lol its just one of those things in my life as a pet owner you can only do the best that you can do but sometimes even that is not very far.

I think now that I have freaking real job I am going to put back an emergency animal / pet fund for when the lil ones need to go in to see the Doctor so its not as much of an issue.