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This is a rescued female that I picked up two weeks ago. She is doing well, eating frozen thawed rat pups like a champ. She did have what appeared to be several rat bites along her spine when she came to me which I have been treating with neosporin. This evening I opened her rack and saw that she had finished her shed and that she looked COMPLETELY different. The area that was scabbed over obviously had several sheds piled up and came off leaving a mostly-healed wound on her back. But what confuses me is all the white - especially on her head! There was absolutely nothing on her head to indicate that there was any trauma there and I have no idea what that is about. Also, on areas further down her body that were not affected by the bites are some white patches as well. Has anyone ever seen this before? I would love some input.

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Spider

>>This is a rescued female that I picked up two weeks ago. She is doing well, eating frozen thawed rat pups like a champ. She did have what appeared to be several rat bites along her spine when she came to me which I have been treating with neosporin. This evening I opened her rack and saw that she had finished her shed and that she looked COMPLETELY different. The area that was scabbed over obviously had several sheds piled up and came off leaving a mostly-healed wound on her back. But what confuses me is all the white - especially on her head! There was absolutely nothing on her head to indicate that there was any trauma there and I have no idea what that is about. Also, on areas further down her body that were not affected by the bites are some white patches as well. Has anyone ever seen this before? I would love some input.
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>>Spider

That's odd...perhaps it was the neosporin that caused the change???...she may have rubbed some on her head after you applied it to her back,etc.
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Charles Glaspie
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I was thinking something along those lines. The ingredients in neosporin have nothing that would cause bleaching. Maybe the occlusion from the petrolatum base of the ointment had something to do with it? Beat the heck outta me. We'll just have to see what she does from here. I kinda like the white on her head... hope it stays that way!
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Spider

It looks as though she rubbed particularly hard to get off her most recent shed. If the scabs and old shed were irritating her she may have done just that.

Who hasn't had dry skin or a scab that itches? Same thing here. From the looks of her wounds I'd be willing to bet you keep her in a tank with some sort of tree limb in it... am I right?

If so, go back and look at the underside of the branch. You may find blood or some stuck shed on the underside... if so... mystery solved.

If not (since I'm just guessing here anyways)... then I have no idea.

That sounds extremely plausible, except that she only had cypress mulch and a smooth water dish in her rack at the time. I looked at the shed again and there wasn't any blood that I could see on the scabbed area. So... the mystery remains.
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Spider

Sometimes pigmented cells won't produce pigment ofter trauma in people. I have seen some instances where a person received head trauma and the wounds healed, but they grew gray hair there the rest of their life, even though they were young at the time of injury. Maybe this is the same case with a snake. I'd love to know if the pigment ever returns. Keep us posted if you can.
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Jessica
0.1 pastel jungle
1.1 spiders
1.0 het pied
0.1 pied
1.0 VPI axanthic poss het snow
0.1 het VPI axanthic
1.1 het clown
1.0 DH Jolliff snow
0.1 Albino het Jolliff snow

Maybe instead of laying on top of something hot, she burrowed underneath a hot rock or something similar and burned and scarred the top of her body?