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RaVeNo888o
09-28-04, 08:38 PM
**edit* read second post* i still have a question pertaining to this incident below. so read if you want*

Hey guys, i just have a question/concern regarding my ijcp. the easiest way is to explain what happened first.

ok, first of all, I moved for school, so its been about a month now. I brought my ijcp and cal king with me. I went to feed the ijcp today, which would have been his first meal since the move because i was letting him settle. My gf and I were standing in front of his steralite container. I put the rat in, just laying on the floor for him (he was curled up in his water dish). He smelt the rat and went into feeding mode, he saw our movement so he struck and bumped his nose on side of the container but was ok.. so we stayed still but he still hadnt located the rat. I move a little again and he struck, fairly hard this time, and wacked his nose on the side again. actually i think the contact was made with his bottom jaw.

ok...so he backed off a bit and i looked at his jaw looked a little pushed in on the bottom right side (i dont know how else to describe it, it wasnt like halfway to the back of his mouth or anything, just tiny bit)

So that got me worrying that he messed up his jaw, i dont know how easy it is for them to break or whatever. He was opening his mouth and kinda moving his bottom jaw, which i realize after stopping to think about it was just realigning his jaw. But he finally found the rat but only just kinda nudged it a few times and went to the other side of the cage.

Over on the other side he was kinda pacing back and forth and doing the realigning thing again, and a few times he seemed to tilt his head sideways and kinda dragging his head along the papertowel. After that he seemed to be ok, when i look his jaw seems to look normal. My worry is realy that he didnt eat the rat, its been a month since he ate because of my move.

I just wanted to hear what some of you more experience people thought, ive never really seen a hurt snake so i dont know how they act. I was worried at first he might have broke a bone or something but now i dunno. Possibly just stunned. So would it be normal for a snake to not want to eat after just stunning himself.
Is it even possible for him to have done any real damage striking at the plastic (and it was towards the middle of the 'wall' not near a corner, so there was more give).

So what do you guys think? sorry for the length, i had to put every detail for peace of mind. Incase it matters, he is a year and 4 months old, so he is about 3.5 feet long.

Thanks in advance. Like i said, at the moment he seems to be acting normally, just lounged out on the heated side. If i hadn't have witnessed the incident i wouldnt be able to tell anything happened at the moment.

RaVeNo888o
09-28-04, 08:42 PM
uhhh...ok then..i just went back after posting and he has started eating,soooo i guess hes ok lol. (uhh hes being a tard and trying to eat the rat tail first)

but just so this isnt a waste. Is it even possible for a snake to injure himself badly by striking at its enclosure? just curious. How hard is it for them to injure themselve to the point of breaking something.

sorry for the long read

treegirl
09-28-04, 08:49 PM
yeah---i'm glad he's okay.

spiderman
09-29-04, 05:58 AM
ive heard stories of snakes breaking their jaw bones from striking at the glass doors of the enclosure (a bull snake was one of them). a friend has an eastern diamond back which damaged a fang whilst striking, and another friend has a cobra which damaged its nose after persistant striking. so yes they can hurt themselves like this.

glad hes ok :) - adam

concept3
09-29-04, 07:11 AM
Ive seen my ball python strike and miss, hitting the hide in his cage and doing the exact same thing as that, It worried me for a bit, but then he proceeded to eat.

RaVeNo888o
10-01-04, 01:33 AM
my cal king has struck at the glass a few times but never really had an incident with him, this was the first i had seen the IJ do this. I figured they could hurt themselved, i just thought maybe some snakes couldnt put enough force into a strike to do permanent damage, but i guess that also depends on the health of the snake (and their bones)

hes doing fine though, i was just over reacting i guess :p