MY POOR BABY! stupid mouse! HELP!

[raebug2000]

while feeding the eight hungry mouths i have...weighing and cleaning water bowls etc a mouse decided to chop pieces out of my snake! the vet said there is really nothing I can do. he offered me aniboitic ointment and said to just keep her warm.she is only 3 and a half ounces....but one of my sweeter babies.
i'm at a loss, this has never happened to any of my snakes... i have 15 total....
do any of you more expericed snake keepers have ANY advice?

im minimizing stress on her with an underheat pad...i have wrapped half of her hatchling box with a towel to provide a cave feel.....i put her on paper towels...damn i dont want her to die.

[SnakeFetish]

hey, sucks what happened to ur snake. How bad is the bite? Is it just a few scales? If so, I wouldn't worry too much about it. You should try feeding freshly killed and eventually make the move to frozen. Just keep ur husbandry up and the snake should be ok.

[joey]

don't feed live.

[marisa]

Joey wow that's some real deep thought you put into your post. Make me wonder why people even come to forums. "Don't feed live" really helped out buddy!

To answer your question raebug, the vet is probably correct. All you can do is keep the wounds ULTRA clean.

Remove all substrate now and replace with paper towel. Fully clean the cage A LOT. Change water and water dish, A LOT.

Do not handle the snake except for putting on polysporin. Leave the snake TOTALLY alone until the wounds seem to be doing really good and are healing. I wouldn't bother trying to feed for a couple weeks.

Feed frozen thawed from now on. Very many risks come from live feedings. If you MUST feed live, hold the mouse down the tongs while the snake grabs it. You MUST watch 100% of the time when a live rodent is with a snake.

Make sure your husbandry is perfect during this time as well.

Marisa

[RepTylE]

There isn't much else to do. keeping the enclosure super clean like Marissa said and keep her stress to a minimum. When you feed her give her the smallest food you can to minimize skin stretching and pain or she might not want to eat. Getting small meals into her is more important than the size of the meals at this point. I dealt with a similar problem this summer when I first got my BP rescue. Hope you can save her and learned a lesson.

[HeatherRose]

I'm with Marisa on this...don't feed live. Nice! It's certainly not like anybody deserves this because they feed live...

What kind of antibiotic ointment were you given?(just out of curiosity, and for my own future reference :) ) You can also try using some polysporin, but I'm sure what the vet gave is better.

Good luck with minimizing stress and switching to f/t, and I hope she improves for you :)

-Heather

[BoidKeeper]

I'm with Marisa too. There is sometimes too much involved to simply say don't feed live. I have a ball here that if I don't feed live will starve to death.
If you want to make short statements that are to the point maybe you should have tried this one,
Don't feed live unattainded.
Sometimes you have to feed live, but you never have to feed unattainded.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Jeff_Favelle]

There's a right way to feed live, and there's a WRONG way to feed live.........

[mykee]

Bingo! Pick the right way. BTW, your way, was clearly the wrong way. Enough people gave you good advice that I feel comfortable enough stating the way you feed is completely irresponsible. Fact: LOTS of people feed live ( I am one of them). A minute amount of injuries occur if you used common sense when feeding live. 1. Crush the little mouses face before yo decide to throw it into the cage. 2. Restrain feed your live prey items, and NEVER EVER EVER take you eyes off the cage. Lesson learned, too bad it was your snake that had to suffer.

[marisa]

Even still this post has nothing to do with feeding live or not. I am basically sick of that arguement and that's my motivation for steering this post away from it.

The problem the thread starter is having is BEYOND that point. Yes it's a good example for the arguement against live, but the person obviously wants advice on how to care for the snake AFTER the bite.

But still yes I agree, don't feed live and even LOOK away. Preferablly, don't feed live unless you are holding it down with tongs.

Marisa

[Jeff_Favelle]

The problem the thread starter is having is BEYOND that point.

If we don't learn from our mistakes, then what's the point? If it helps just ONE person from subsequently making the SAME mistake, this is it not worth it?

I think it is.

[raebug2000]

ok, well my adults are on frozen thawed. my hatchlings however i keep on stunned live until i get them to rats...once they take prekilled rat they i go to frozen( mainly because it's cleaner than keeping and breeding rats and more convienent). i massively stun my mice before i even put them in the cage but it seems this one shoke it off ( and it was a hopper). her little box is clean and i have removed her water ( soaking could make it worse)....and can you get this??? the ingredents are the same as neosporin.....the vet confirmed i was right.

i know i should have known better than to leave her unsupervised.


PS
all her clutch mates are taking full grown mice with no assistance, she is the only one still on hoppers

[Jeff_Favelle]

Hopefully the bite "experience" doesn't set her back any. Just keep her warm and clean. Soaking will not let the scales heal. Just like us. Ever put a band-aid on and have the cut/wound just turn white and never close up? Same thing. They have amazing resiliance though. Should be ok, provided she hasn't been spooked by the feeding experience.

[joey]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
There's a right way to feed live, and there's a WRONG way to feed live.........

i agree.

sorry for the short post earlier--- just don't jump all over me please. :(

[arkuden]

no worries joey sometimes we as herpers can get frustrated seeing things happen. If they havent happened to us we tend to excuse them as ignorance most of the time and expect people to be at the same level of experience as us. Or the thing that happened just seems to outrageous for us to see as an honest accident.

obviously feeding live requires lots of attention but i provide the same amount of attention to all snakes when feeding regardless of live, f/t, or f/k To me having an accident is not an accident as i dont have many snakes. It would be different if i were in raebug's shoes.

raebug2000 - im glad you found a vet asap. The road to recovery can be a long one for anything i hope its sucessful. I can only imagine how nerve-wreaking that would be.... gives me the shivers thinking about it.

[raebug2000]

im going to waiting until i see some kind of "scabbing" etc ...im going to only offer pinkie mice to her and watch everyone else carefully.

it was an honest mistake. thankyou everyone for the support.

[RepTylE]

Sounds like a plan :D

[Nicky]

goodluck:)

[Tim_Cranwill]

Pinkie mice might not even be seen as a food source for the snake and if it DOES take the pinkie, it will almost BURN more calories eating the thing than it can GAIN from it! LOL

Try stunned or restrained hopper/adult mice in a few weeks. Just worry about keeping the snake clean, warm and dry for now. Treat the wounds and go from there. Missing a few meals is almost a non-issue.

When I feed live, I don't stand there and watch. I close the enclosure and stay close by to listen for the unmistakable squeaks to come during constriction. When I hear that, I check to make sure the snake is not being chewed on (or possibly can be). If it is, I have a pair of hemostats (medical pliers more or less) ready to intervene. The odd time that happens, I usually only need to squeeze the rodent's neck for a bit or possible try to break its neck. This usually happens when the snake fails to get the rodents mouth in it's mouth and catches it mid-body. If I don’t hear any squeaks for 5 or 10 minutes (depends on the particular snake), I take out the rodent and that’s that.

That's what I do with live feeders and it has worked for me. Though, I don't feed many live meals...

[raebug2000]

thats what i usally go by is the thump ( strike) and then the surprised squeak......usually when i feed it kinds sounds like a sort of grotesque dominoes.......thump squeak........thump squeak......thump squeak.......

( heh, like a watched pot doesnt boil.... a watched hatchling....etc)

<shakes head> i checked on her this morning to she if she was alive......she was/is. i feel like sucha bad mommy.

[kjay]

wounder how some of the new "no sting" liquid bandage applications would be, it may be worth asking your vet, i help with sports injusies for a local football team and i use it al the time and wokrs great, i would be interested to see what your vet thinks, it can be bought in aresol and brush on, brush on would be better do to fumes,, but please please ask your vets thoughts, just a suggestion

[HeatherRose]

And a watched Pop-Tart never catches on fire...;)

How are the wounds looking raebug? Are there signs of healing, scabbing, etc?

Are those liquid bandages healing or antibiotic in anyway?

[raebug2000]

man i cant tell really. i wish i had a camera so i could post pics.
it looks dry.....there is no swelling ( no signs of infection) she has feeling around her boo-boos though which is good. it's going to be awhile...these wounds are deep. it's going to be more than a few sheds on this.

ive been checking her when i get up and when i go to work ......the vet said the liquid nadages would be fine if it werent for the deepness of the wound. he said superficial stuff? go for it... it will come off in a shed. but she has a signifcant space where she was "eaten"? significantly gnawed apon.....the other 2 places just look like nasty rat bites.
no signs of scabbing yet.
but you know my other girls and pastel male who is shedding ( shed= grow ...grow baby grow) are little piggies and fat. gotta look on the bright side i suppose.