Help!!

[eli123]

I have a juvenile Pueblan that I've spoken about in threads before. He seemed extremely lethargic and was actin strange all day. He hasn't eaten for me in about 3 or 4 weeks, and I figured he was hungry so I planned to buy a pinkie tomorrow. Tonight, I walked in and he was laying upside down in his tank. I was shocked. I turned him over to discover that he was still alive, but barely. I want to feed him, but I'm not sure if hell have the energy to eat and I don't want him to die eating. Any suggestions?

[stephanbakir]

Feeding him when he is that weak is the last thing you should do. Is he hydrated? I duno about milk snakes but you can give non feeding boiga nutrition by adding it to their water, electrolytes etc.

[Donnie]

Only one thing to do here, you should take him to the vets.

[eli123]

Thank you so much everyone! Unfortunately he did die late last night. I guess it was just right. When I got him, he was about 3 months old, from a local pet shop, and he had a small gash on top of his head. The shop didn't even know if he was captive bred or wild caught. Now normally I would never buy an animal under these circumstances but I was in a pinch and needed him for an event that day. Anyway, I'm thinking it might have something to do with his origin. Parasites, or the gash maybe. Anyway, thank you guys so much for being so helpful.

[lady_bug87]

Which type of event?

[eli123]

I run a small organization that brings exotic animals around to local nature/environmental related events to sort of educate the general public on them and try to change some opinions. I picked this guy up as more of a show animal than one for the families/kids to handle, and he only went to 2 of these events. The last one was in October, so I've ruled that out as a cause of anything.

[h3h]

I'm sorry, I'm not the smartest person in the room when I'm alone, but you're engaged with exotic wild like enough to "bring[s] exotic animals around to local nature/environmental related events to sort of educate the general public on them and try to change some opinions." Yet did not have a run of the mill Milk? So you went to a local Walmart and picked up a "show animal" with a gash on it's head, and weren't sure what to do when it was doing the backstroke? I'm not being mean, but this sounds hilarious. Okay, I'm sorry your snake died - I like these snakes.

- h3

[eli123]

Okay, number one if you don't have anything nice to say, you can go. I'm sure you've made mistakes in your life, and wouldn't enjoy me making you feel stupider than you already do about it, especially when it resulted in the death of an animal.

Number two, no I did not run out to a Walmart for a show animal. It sounds bad, I know and it was probably a mistake that I picked one that wasn't in the best condition, but I was in a hurry as the event was already going on. If you've ever worked in a nature center or anything like it, you'll know that this sort of thing isn't uncommon. So yes, I adopted a snake in less-than-great condition, but gave it a better home than the pet store it was in before, and I got to see its condition improve before it died. Thank you.

[ilovemypets1988]

hi eli, his death could be a result of a number of things, from wrong setup, wrong temps all the way to having an RI (respiratory Infection), mites, etc. please note at this point that i aint questioning your husbandry at all.

the fact that the milk also had a head injury probably didnt help much but i dont think its the lack of food as it had only been a month and most snakes can go a few months without food fairly easily so this leads me to believe that there was something wrong internally.

im sorry to hear about the death anyway as they really are lovelly snakes.

[eli123]

Thank you for the response. I own quite a few reptile and this experience has served to make me much more careful in the future.

[Mark Taylor]

Any pics of the milk and set up and the other reptiles you have?

So sad the snake died.

[ilovemypets1988]

id suggest that you goto breeders for now on tbh or atleast reptile specailists but take it as part of natures way and move on to the next 1 :D

[Luis A. Reyes]

Thank you so much everyone! Unfortunately he did die late last night. I guess it was just right. When I got him, he was about 3 months old, from a local pet shop, and he had a small gash on top of his head. The shop didn't even know if he was captive bred or wild caught. Now normally I would never buy an animal under these circumstances but I was in a pinch and needed him for an event that day. Anyway, I'm thinking it might have something to do with his origin. Parasites, or the gash maybe. Anyway, thank you guys so much for being so helpful.
Go back to the petstore and let them know what hapened, petstores usually have you sign some paper that say in a certain amount of time if the animals dies the petstore will be held responsible and you can get your money or a new animal. Also you should let them know not to sell an animal that they arent sure of the health of the animals and origin(Captive-bred, or Wild Caught).

[ilovemypets1988]

or even not to sell an animal that they clearly dont know about to be quite frank

[eli123]

Thanks guys! I bought the animal in July, and this pet store did not have me sign anything although I usually do sign something. Ill have to speak to them. Thank you

[Chu'Wuti]

Our local herp society does public education events for schools and libraries around the state. We have a policy of not exhibiting animals that are newly acquired/in quarantine. Our policy is that newly acquired animals are automatically considered to need quarantine, as we often simply can't know when we get them whether they carry disease or not. Quarantine should be a minimum of three months, and many people I know quarantine longer.

Here's our reasoning:

First, there's the obvious need to not spread disease from one animal to another when they're all near each other in a confined space and/or multiple people are handling them (e.g., 700 students in one day).

Second, and less obvious, is that such an event places the animals, even completely healthy ones, under a lot of stress. An animal that is "brand-new" to you is already under an unusual degree of stress, and so is an injured or ill animal. So an animal that is already in less-than-optimal condition due to being new to you or injured or, possibly, diseased when you don't know it yet, may be stressed beyond its capacity to recover, even though the impact of the stress wouldn't be visible to us humans.

Even though your recent loss likely wasn't caused by the exhibition, the Pueblan's inability to recover from whatever was wrong with him might have been exacerbated by the stress your snake experienced during the exhibition.

You and your organization might want to institute a policy similar to ours in order to help prevent any problems, whether similar or completely new, in the future.