Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i would like to know has anyone had there ball python bitten before and how serious was it? i know not to leave a live one in over night but when the snake bites the rats are sometimes able to bite the snake if not grabbed properly and would like to hear experineces with this and how the animal was affected? thanks for all posts!!!

My two normal balls are eating adult mice and have been bitten a couple times. Usually the mice won't break through the scales and the bite will just swell up for a couple hours. One time a mouse caused minor bleeding that was barely noticeable, I applied Neosporin twice a day to the bite and after a few days everything was good as new.

I always watch my snakes while feeding any rodent with developed teeth. After the snake strikes and starts constricting, I like to locate the rodent's head and teeth by picking up the snake. If the rodent's teeth are close to the snake I usually hold it's mouth shut or let it try and nibble on me. However I haven't fed rats yet so I'm not sure about them.

Hope I helped.
-----
1.1 Normal Ball Pythons (Snakerton and Mathilda)
1.0 Het Albino Ball Python (Walter)
0.1 Albino Ball Python (Perrie)

Wouldn't it be easier and safer to stun the rodent first?

true. but first i hate to sound like a wus but i kind of feel bad to slam a rat on the wall than feed. also they dont always eat for me. my other option was to feed pre-killed by co2 but the promblem with that is when i feed my few balls im not near my collection for a few days after that cause there not living in my house and after i feed i go back a few days after so i cant leave a pre-killed in ther tub for three - four days after.( could you imagine the stink if they didnt eat). so thats some reasons. thanks.

>>... i hate to sound like a wus but i kind of feel bad to slam a rat on the wall...

I think stunning is much more humane for the rodent. Other wise it's death by suffication.
DeMak

P.S. I always used to stun the pears I fed to this guy...

>>i would like to know has anyone had there ball python bitten before and how serious was it? i know not to leave a live one in over night but when the snake bites the rats are sometimes able to bite the snake if not grabbed properly and would like to hear experineces with this and how the animal was affected? thanks for all posts!!!

It's a russian roulette game. The snake gets lucky - or not.

I've had plenty of snakes get nipped by rodents without problems, but I also had a ball python die after getting nipped by a mouse. Apparently mice/rats are notorious for having bacteria on the teeth and this caused septecemia (systemic blood infection) in the snake. Snake died a few days later. I had another snake (black rat that had escaped a week earlier from his cage) that got chewed on by a mouse..found him outside the basement door during a warm winter day at work with 3 areas where the scales had been chewed off by a wild mouse (the largest was about the size of a dime) ...mouse must have gotten to him while he was torpid during the cold night.. injuries were still fresh enough they were bleeding a little... after the experience with the ball a couple years earlier, I immediately got the black rat to a vet and put on a series of antibiotic injections. That essentially saved his life, but the infection still caused damage... he lost a few large chunks of flesh where infection pockets had set up (not at the original bite sites) and then gangrened and later dried up and fell off leaving scarred areas carved into his sides... he spent about 6 months recovering.
-----
_____

PHWyvern

>>i would like to know has anyone had there ball python bitten before and how serious was it? i know not to leave a live one in over night but when the snake bites the rats are sometimes able to bite the snake if not grabbed properly and would like to hear experineces with this and how the animal was affected? thanks for all posts!!!

If you are only talking BPs then none of mine, ever, since they only took prekilled or F/T and were terrified of live.....which might be explained by the scars they had before I got them.

Working in a pet store you see it all.
Had a kid last month bring in his BP with a chunk out of it's eyeball....live mouse. ('cause he thought mice couldn't hurt him as much as a rat...which had already scarred and scared the snake)
'Nother guy had a Kingsnake only took live and it ended up bitten through the roof of the mouth....huge sinus infection. Surgery, never ate well after and whithered away and died.
Have a couple customers buying half a dozen mice to feed a BP that got bitten by a rat and had to be fed mice instead.
-----
Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

and will only eat dead ones at night after dark..So obviously he has never been bitten...I do occasionally feed live to my boa if I run out of CO2 and she has never been injured but I really hate doing it..
-----