Help! Help! Help! Please and thank you.

[Bonzo]

Hello everyone, how is everybody?
My Name is Eric, from Canada, more precisly Ontario,Timmins. I'll try to do my best in english, thanks for your patience. It is also my first to this Site, I really appreciat all the forums , it's a great helper.

I have a serious concern about my Ball phyton. She's almost 4 years old, her name is Dalyla. we've been great, healthy and very affectionate.

Two weeks ago, Dalyla started to awake from her hibernation. To all my suprise, her attitude was out of control, literaly she was telling me; in a way that I've never experience before; I'm hungry! In all of her attacking mode, really agressive.
Out of rats, I went to the nearest pet store. Bad luck again, they only had a few left and they were bigger than usual. I brought one home, and gave it to her.

Big Mistake, the rat totaly destroy her top and bottom jaw, he bit her many times, so bad I freeked. It took me everything to get that rat out of the cage, once i got it out, I took a look at Dalyla and that's where I need your help guy's, Shes cut bad what do I do? Antibiotics...how much...Do I feed her? What do I do?
:confused:

[JeffT]

Vet right away! How did the rat get her so bad? DO you leave her with the live prey unattended?

[Bartman]

I agree, you need to seek medical assistance...possible stiches...

ANOTHER EXAMPLE WHY NOT TO FEED LIVE PEOPLE! You should be feeding it frozen/thawed mice...

[Clownfishie]

You DEFINITELY need to get that snake to a vet RIGHT NOW. This isn't something you can deal with yourself... she needs to see a professional, asap. Until you get in to see the vet -- get her into as sterile of an environment as possible -- paper towel substrate, clean water, and hides. You can also try putting some polysporin on her wounds... but most of all, get her to that vet! And no, you definitely don't want to feed her in this condition...

Now here's your lesson: In the future -- never leave live prey in with your snake unattended -- as you now know, they can cause serious harm, or even kill your snake. It's much MUCH better to feed pre-killed, or even better, frozen-thawed (F/T) prey to your snake.

Best of luck, I hope she pulls through for you...


Jen

[marisa]

Agree. This snake MUST see a vet.

Another tip for you: Ball pythons DO NOT hibernate/brumate! Are you offering this snake heat? Some of them fast during winter, but that's NOT brumating or hibernating and during this time they still need heat.

Marisa

[crucified]

Originally posted by Bartman
I agree, you need to seek medical assistance...possible stiches...

ANOTHER EXAMPLE WHY NOT TO FEED LIVE PEOPLE! You should be feeding it frozen/thawed mice...


i dont want to bring humor into this.. im very sorry you chose to feed live and it destroyed your snake but... live people? of course you dont feed it live people bartman.. :P well unless you want trouble with the law? :)
are frozen/thawed people ok though?.. just outta curiosity

signed..
joey

[Piers]

feeding ballpythons or any other snake live is fine. Balls really seem to feed better on live than f/t, f/k. But and I mean BUT you must keep an eye on the cage, not forget about it for a few hours or more. I usually leave food and water for the pray just to make sure , also a hide box for the snake will releave the stress for both animals.
As for the guy who said" only feed ball pythons f/t mice", ball pythons fed on mice is very expencive, start them on and keep them on rats.
Piers

[Bartman]

LOL! my bad, i was thinking to put a , their but didnt think..haha thats really funny...

I dont think live is ever necassary..even if your watching..so then you'll be able to see the mouse tear your snake apart instead of finding it a little later...??...no sense to me...its a bad thing and you cant do anything now but just for other people reading this who feed live, dont!

[Piers]

Bartman you tell people to feed ballpythons f/t mice? YFIMO!
live is fine and if you are unable to get a mouse out of a snake cage because its "tearing" up your snake, mabe your in the wrong hobbie. A mouse won't "tear" you up,lol
I'm not a big fan of feeding live but with ball pythons it somtimes is a must.
I have about 60 + ball pythons and I spent years trying to feed only f/t or f/k, but Ive found they do better with live.
Piers

[jozef]

i have a water python and i can't feed it dead rats or mice and i can't feed it live mice without tail because it is very picky i think live food is the way. and it is also cool to watch.

[Bartman]

My ball takes f/t nooo problemo..I dont think their is any reason to feed live..ive seen some crazy stuff, injuries, of snakes that were given live while the person was watching.

If you give your snake live, and the mouse gets bit..it will bite back..how fast are you to be able to stop that...i mean most of the time it wont happen but once the mouse could get a nice bite off...

[daver676]

Originally posted by Bartman
My ball takes f/t nooo problemo..I dont think their is any reason to feed live..

A skiny, starving snake is a good reason to me. You're welcome to come over here and try to give my snake a f/t rat.

[Vengeance]

It all comes down to what works best for your snake. If you Ball will take F/T or P/K then you have much less to worry about. But there are ocassions where the snake will not take dead prey. But no matter what you allways run the risk or your snake getting injured no matter how safe you are during a feeding. The risk is ever present, a rat or mouse when being constricted can still try and bite, claw and fight back to try and escape. 99.9% of the time I'm sure nothing ever happens but it only takes that .01% to seriously injure your snake. So it comes down to if the snake will take dead prey then go the safer route and feed dead, but if you can't get the snake to eat dead prey then do what you have to do, do it safely and feed live. There is nothing wrong with either way of doing things it just comes down to a matter of saftey and risk involved.

[condabroad]

With both my snakes they will not take dead or frozen. I would get that snake to the vet and watch how big you of rats you feed it, if I am not mistaken you go by twice the head size but someone else may have a different rule to go by. Vet asap!!

[Frillie]

First dab some betadine onto the wound and let it settle there.
Then you should take her to a vet to determine whether further attention will be necessary or not.

Try to move her to frozen rats. There is NO need to feed live. It can only do harm, as you have witnessed. If the snake doesn't eat frozen right away, try freshly killed. Rats have a set of teeth like chisel, they are made to crack hard things open. It isn't uncommon for rats to crack right through the snakes jaw, leaving the snake for dead, or even killing the snake instantly. Unless the snake is emaciated and barely clinging to life, NEVER FEED LIVE.

By the way, I'm from Toronto, Ontario. Did you by any chance see the reptile shows by Reptilia at the Sportmans Show in April?

[Bartman]

not mistaken you go by twice the head size but someone else may have a different rule to go by

im pretty sure it should be slightly bigger then the thickest part of the snakes body..so it should leave a bump after it eats..right?

[sapphire_moon]

I used to say "NEVER FEED LIVE, no matter what" but there are just some that refuse EVERYTHING but live.

If you are going to feed live, feed live responsibly, restrain it, or sit/stand and watch it to make sure it doesn't harm the snake, or feed something to young to hurt the snake (For rats thats around 12-14days old).

if your going to feed live, feed live responsibly

[nita]

I agree, I would not let my snakes starve. Thankfully they are all on prekilled and the kicker for the last one was while she was constricting the mouse she folded its head under and basically closed its mouth on a tiny bit of her skin, it didnt' even break her skin but the pinch was enough, she takes prekilled no problem. Also when I fed live I made sure that A. Mouse was fed and watered so it wouldnt' go after the snake as food. B. If the mouse got close to the snake without her striking I would push it back into a corner so it couldn't actually get close to her unless she initiated the contact.