Reptile & Amphibian Forums

About a month ago, I rescued what I thought was a baby Burmese python from a completely clueless friend-of-a-friend.

As you can see, there was a cut on his face that had gotten horribly infected. Vet trip, $50 in Rx, force-feeding the meds, etc. That's almost completely cleared up now.

With that crisis out of the way, I'm now able to notice the more subtle details, such as the fact that pythons have slit pupils, and my baby has round ones. Huh.
Also, pythons are usually short and fat.

After a quick Google search, I was able to identify him only as "some kind of rat snake." Anyone care to hazard a guess rergarding species or age?

The topmost photo is the most accurate depiction of his color, but the bottom one (with the plaid background) shows the shape of his head and body. He's about 3 1/2 ft long, and weighs just over one pound.

or a corn snake,a very unhealthy looking one at that.looks totally dehydrated,underweight too.ask a vet about some silvasulfadyne(sp.?) cream for it's snout,put that snake on some heat,make sure it has access to some water,better yet give it a daily 10-15 minute soak over the next few days.maybe offer it a small meal in a few days....anyway that's what i would do,good luck.
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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

He's currently on gentamicin (a different antibiotic ointment, but similar to silver sulfadiazine) 4x a day. Now that he's healing well and feeling stronger, it's a pain to hold him down to apply it... I ususally wait until he's asleep and then wipe a glob of it on the blister before he wakes up.

Right now he's shedding and won't leave his hide, but he ususally loves to lounge in his "hot tub"... I accidentally set his water dish above his warming pad once, and he loved it so much that I've been doing it ever since. The heat pad is SEVERELY waterproofed, BTW, and very low-temp. It puts the water at about 90°.

About 10 days ago he ate a fuzzy rat. I offered him another one as soon as he passed the first, but he was absolutely not interested in it. I mentioned he's shedding now, but I'll try again as soon as his eye caps are off.

Thanks for the advice, though, I haven't kept a constrictor before, only rattlesnakes, and never a rescue mission like this guy.

P.S. He likes to crawl up under my shirt and take a nap against my skin. 98° isn't going to burn him, right? I know I wouldn't let his basking area get that hot.
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98 degrees is our internal, not external temperature. He should be fine napping on you. A fine job on the rescue, BTW!
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Diego

Diego & Tiffany's Zoo:
SNAKES
4.3.0 Corn Snakes (Different morphs)
1.1.0 Everglades Rat Snakes
1.0.0 Baird's Rat Snake
1.2.0 Trans-Pecos Rat Snake
0.1.0 Amel Pacific Gopher Snake
1.0.0 Het Amel San Diego Gopher Snake
2.1.0 Sonoran Gopher Snake
0.1.0 Amel Sonoran Gopher Snake
1.0.0 Mexican Black Kingsnake
2.1.0 Gray Banded Kingsnakes (1.1 River Road, 1.0 Non-Locale Specific)
0.2.0 California Kingsnakes
0.1.0 Thayeri Kingsnake
0.1.0 Florida Kingsnake
1.0.0 Boa Constrictor
0.1.0 Dumeril's Boa
1.1.0 Rosy Boas (Mexican & Mid Baja)
1.1.0 Kenyan Sand Boas
0.1.0 Indonesian Dwarf Pacific Boa
0.1.0 Tangerine Honduran Milksnake
1.0.0 Honduran Milksnake
1.2.0 Ball Pythons
1.0.0 Woma Python
1.1.0 Cape York Spotted Pythons
1.1.0 Macklot's Pythons
1.0.0 Western Hognose
0.1.0 Blacktail Cribo

LIZARDS
1.0.0 Frilled Dragon
3.1.0 Bearded Dragons (2 Normal, 1 RedXGold, 1 Citrus)
0.1.0 Eastern Collared Lizard
0.1.0 Merauke Blue Tongue Skink
1.3.0 Leopard Geckos
1.0.1 Yellow Niger Uromastyx
1.1.0 Chuckwalla
0.1.0 Banded Gecko

FROGS
2.2.0 Southern Bell Frogs
1.0.0 Green Tree Frogs
1.0.0 Striped Walking Frogs
1.1.1 White's Tree Frogs

I just looked up Emory's ratsnake, AKA Great Plains ratsnake (Pantherophis emoryi, or Elaphe guttata emoryi) and that is definitely the exact coloration that Monty has. However, the Emory'ses (how do you pluralize that?) in every photo I saw had a distinctive V-shaped mark on the head, which mine does not... is that a defining characteristic, or just a prevalent one?

I should probably move this thread to the Elaphe forum, regardless.
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right,it could be considered a corn/corn subsp./closest relative that's just drabber with a higher dorsal blotch count....your pics show the classic 'spearpoint' on top of the head-?
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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

With rat snakes/corn snakes there are a lot of variations so try posting in the cornsnake/rat snake forum or the ID this snake forum.

Also rat snakes don't need to be kept as warm as pythons so be careful with that. Keeping it too warm can cause problems.