scale rot???????

[VI Reptiles]

Hi, I have never seen scale rot and Im not sure if my snake has the infection or not. My snake has been on forest bedding for about 2 months and since then problems keep comming and comming so when I noticed brownish stuff under his scales I kinda thought it was some wood dust under its scales. But now my snake stinks BAD as if something is dead which there isnt and the scales look worse. He/she is about a 2 ft and I fed it a large rat which yesterday night it regurgitated in his bath. I started applying polysporin/ neosporin last night and it looked sooooooo much better in the morning. Could it be going away or should I take it to the vet. I will get pics on the forum tommowrow. The snake was fed 3 almost 4 days before it regurgitated it.


I dont want my snake to die and I will pay quite a bit to cure it. The scales before they turned brown were a pal pink color.

Help?????

[zero&stich]

Whats your temps(day/night) and humidity?

[VI Reptiles]

the air temps are 75 to 80 and the humidity most of the time is 60 and sometimes 50.

[Vengeance]

What is your Hot Spot temp? How do you know what the temps are? What is forest bedding? Is the forrest bedding constantly moist? Is he still on Forest Bedding? Why are you bathing him? Has he regeritated before? How big was the rat in relation to your snake, I don't think at 2 feet he should be on Large Rats.

I'm not an expert on Scale rot, but if the substrate is constantly moist your going to have a scale rot problem, espically with a particle substrate. Also why are you giving you snake a bath when, according to you, you hummidity temps are correct. If you hummiidty is between 50 - 60% then your Ball python doesn't need a bath. Also Large rats for a 2ft Ball python doesn't sound right to me. Atleast the large rats I've seen, I doubt my Ball python could get one down and if he did I doubt he would keep it down because of the size. You told us the ambiant temp but what is your hot spot and how are your measuring the tempature? If your not providing a proper hot spot and you are feeding huge prey items it's no wonder that he regeritated his meal. Don't feed him again for, I think it's 3 - 4 weeks to give him time to recover from his regerg.

[smeagel]

Take the forest bedding out and put down paper towels. This way the black mites or ticks can be seen easily. Make your ambient temp. at least 80 constantly and a hot spot of 90 to 95. If you have the right humidity do not bath your BP. If the humidity is not right then he will sit in his water dish which is telling you to put up the humidity. This is how i would start to figure out the problem, but i'm by no means an expert. Good luck with your BP and keep us posted on his progress.

[VI Reptiles]

Vengeance - Well im not too sure what the hotspot temp is because he has a UTH and its whatever it can get too i guess but It isnt actually hot to the touch to me. Well I had an extra dome light as I have a leopard gecko, a sudan plated and 2 tokay geckos. I put it on and it is at about 85-90 usually when I look in but at night it goes down to about 70-80. Forest bedding is like wood chips but there from some kind of tropical tree. I try and keep the bedding moist at night but it dries up during the day and I do that every night. Like I said when I saw the brownish stuff under his scales i thought a bath would get it out. He has not regurgitated before so it was a shock. Well I can either feed him 2 adult mice or 1 large rat thats 2 times the size. This was the first time I ever fed him a rat and he ate it no problem. He also had it in his belly for 3 and a half days which I think if it was too big he would have regurgitated it in a day or 2. The rat is a little bit less that the snakes body and I just put it in in the cage and when i looked in the morning it was gone and the snake was fat. I have no idea how hot a UTH can get but I just leave it on all day and night everyday.

Smeagel - I took the forest bedding out almost right away and put paper towels down. I cant see any ticks or mites. He really never sits in his bowl for some reason and I havent seen him drink for awile either.

Im also supposably taking him in later today. I think at 4:45 or so.

Thanks for your help

[zero&stich]

Disease/Infection (http://www.animalhospitals-usa.com/reptiles/snake_diseases_infections.html)

Also almost every reptile book has a place for infection- bacterial/fungal or paracites for reference. That's another place to start.

Take a look at that link. Might help you out.
I have to say, if you don't know what the temp of your UTH is, then everyone here is at a loss to help you out.

You should ALWAYS have a digital thermometer in the inside of the enclosure to measure the temps at all times. Exp- I use on one enclosure for my pine. The pad is underneath my Sterlight rubber enclosure, hooked to an ESU thermostat to control my temps without it overheating the snake. Helps to eliminate fire hazards to. Any way I have a nice digital thermometer rested in the inside of the rubber cage on top of where the heat pad is. I can measure left/right and humidity all in one unit.

Now, if your UTH is on night and day and you are not measuring it properally, there is a very good chance the temps are through the roof.

You cannot sense the temp by touch. That is utterally rediculious without a proper tempertaure gauge.

I would suggest finding a thermostat hooking it to the pad and start measuring the temps to the pad itself.

I would also start researching scale rot and compile a bunch info from books, the net and take notes and find a vet and bring the info you collected to the vet and go from there.

EDit: The temp issue was meant to help you out with the regurging. High or low temps can cause an animal to regurgitate.

[Vengeance]

I think the people on this forum myself included have gone over this before with you VI, but I feel like wasting my breath again so here it goes.......

You cant GUESS your tempatures, you have to KNOW what your temps are. What you think is scale rot, could actually be a burn because you don't have dimmer hooked up to your UTH. For the substrate, get rid of it, if your snake has any type of infection the particle substrate is just going to make things worse. Get it on paper towl so you can keep a much cleaner and sterile enviornment so your snake can heal.

You fed the snake, 3 days later the lump was still visible in your snake, on the 5th day after the feeding during your snakes bath, he regeritated his meal. Sounds to me like the snake wasn't able to digest the prey item properly and when you gave him a bath it resulted in the regeratation. 5 days later the prey item was still not digested doesn't sound right to me.

You have allot of things to fix VI. You need to get your snake into a clean sterile ennvornment. You are going to have to wait about 3 weeks before your next feeding attempt so that your snake has time to recover. At your next feeding you should feed it a much smaller then usual prey item, I'd go with a rat Pup. You HAVE to find out what your tempatures are and monitor them to make sure they are correct and your going to need to watch the infection on your snakes belly and make sure it doesn't get worse.

I feel sorry for your snake, I hope that he makes it through this and that you learn from your mistakes and learn to take proper care for your Ball python. If you don't think you can do everything and more of what I listed above, my suggestion, find someone who can.

[paulsreef]

How would you go about hooking up a thermostat to one of those heating pads that are available at the drugstores(the ones with the low, medium, and high settings)? Is there something available at home depot? I'm not an electrician, so a simple explanation would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Paul.

[Vengeance]

Home depot has lamp dimmers which work perfectly, also if you check out this thread...

http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8858

I've used this many times, it doesn't take an electrical enginer to make and works well. Anything that you can controll the flow of electricity to the heat pad will work, heat pads that are just plugged into the wall can reach remps of 100 oF and then some, so it should allways be on a dimmer.

A thermostat is a little on the more expensive side, thermostats controll the tempature for you. There a quote a few out there, Helix controlls being the top of the line. www.bigappleherps.com has a few as well.

[concept3]

you need to buy some sort of digital thermomitor, whether it be a temp gun or one with a probe and find out the temperature of his hot spot. It is not safe to have a uth with no dimmer or hemostat conected to it. I have seen uth's get to 180f. I have adopted snakes with huge burns on 1/3 of their bodies because people didnt put any kind of control on their uth.
One other thing you have to remember, If somthing feels warm to you it probably feels hot to your reptiles. Our bodies are about 25 degrees warmer than theirs.

[VI Reptiles]

Last night I looked into a probe and I will probably be coming in a couple days (shipping). I will look for a hemostat and get one on it right away! Im sure its scale rot because it looks moist and it smells.


Thanks

[zero&stich]

Directly from the Ball Python Manual page 73. I hope you get a book cause like Veng said we need oxygen to.

Necrotizing dermatitis or "scale rot" is common as well and signs of infection is bleeding into the scales. While this is normal pigment change in some snakes(boa constrictors for example) it is NOT normal in the ball python.

Privide your snake with a water dish that is jusy large enough to drink from but not soak in. Some ball pythons use large water dishes to hide in, and consequently they get waterlogged. Excessive moisture can predispose the snakes to skin problems, but external paracites and the local manifestation of severe septicemia are more commanly involved. The skin appears to be weak organ system in ball pythons and is affected by many common disorders.

Symtoms: Scales with reddish color on belly, brown crumpled scales, ulcerated areas

Most common cause: Necrotic dermatitis(scale rot)

Treatment: Increase tempature(in your case I'd find out what exactly the temp is from the pad in the inside). Use newspaper for subtrate. Apply antibiotic ointment as with bacterial dermatitis. In all the mildest cause, see veterinarian.

I found all that in one of my many books, I'm starting to collect. PLEASE PLEASE get at least one book. I just did the grunt work for you. Now I think it is time for you to read a full 100 page book.


Good luck to you.

[VI Reptiles]

Hi, I went to the vet and it turns out it is a bacterial infection. He got a shot of antibiotics and he will be going on monday again. The vet said to get the ambient temp to 85 which I will do. We are going to buy a dimmer switch later as well. I hope this guy makes it as it is my first snake ever and it will probably be my last if it dies. His weight is 400 g's which isnt much at all. I will get a book tommowrow as I thought I had a bp book but I guess not. Dont worry, I will read the whole book. I did that with my leopard geckos so I can do it for my bp.


THANKS!!!

[zero&stich]

Well ignore my long post then. :) I'm so happy you went to a vet. Way to go! A+.

For a long time I kept my BP's on newspaper, even though it was but ugly. It is the best subtrate for as BP.

[VI Reptiles]

I wasnt ignoring it!

[zero&stich]

No no, heh, I meant since you found out it was a bacterial infection my long winded post was a bit too late. bUt maybe it will prove useful in the future :)

Again, very happy you went to see a vet to get questions answered. Best of luck.

[VI Reptiles]

I hope it gets better too!


Thanks for caring!

[paulsreef]

Thanks vengeance, I built the dimmer box for the heat pad tonight and it works like a charm.
Paul.