I have opened the mouths of a lot of snakes, and the only ones to give me problems are hognoses. I had a western that needed repeated deworming and force feeding. His mouth bled, like you said, "freely". LA has mouthrot right, but there were no other symptoms in this hog. You failed to mention why they were examined. If it was routine, I wouldn't worry about it. If there are other problems you should consider a culture to determine if stomatitis is the culprit.

>>Hi all,
>>I recently had 9 Westerns examined by a vet. 7 of the 9 bled freely from the mouth when the vet used a smooth speculum to open their mouths (yes, he was gentle) - any thoughts? Thanks!
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes

[ Hide Replies ]

• blood from mouth exam - neal, Wed Sep 24 15:00:02 2003
• RE: blood from mouth exam - LeosAnonymous, Wed Sep 24 15:21:25 2003
• RE: blood from mouth exam - Colchicine, Wed Sep 24 17:07:31 2003
• RE: blood from mouth exam - neal, Wed Sep 24 17:19:39 2003
• RE: blood from mouth exam - LeosAnonymous, Wed Sep 24 18:25:41 2003
• RE: blood from mouth exam - snakeguy88, Wed Sep 24 18:26:45 2003
• I agree. NP - Jmolden87, Wed Sep 24 19:20:54 2003
• That's an easy correlation - Colchicine, Wed Sep 24 20:36:53 2003
• RE: blood from mouth exam - fantasyreptiles, Wed Sep 24 19:55:54 2003