Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I took in a rescue ball python last week:

2.5 years of age
Very underfed (reason will be explained below)
An unproven male (have not probed him yet, trying to give him some acclimation time...)
When he arrived he was covered in OLD shed.. by old I mean it was discolored and looked as if perhaps there were two sheds coming off at the same time, one eyecap was crinkled and apparently had been that way for quite some time....

He was turned over to me because:
He was blind (He is NOT BLIND)
He was unable to "aim" properly (His Aim is fine, it's his chewing that screws him up)
He would bite himself and coil up on himself while trying to eat (this is true)
He would refuse food if he sat for too long with it (frustration)TRUE

Once he arrived we did what we do with all reptiles that we rescue:

Nice warm, probably a little too warm bath... 30 minutes
2nd bath with betadine diluted in the water - for the 7 plus RAT BITES
3rd warm bath - that produced a nice void - both urine and feces

After the water is drained and the tub is cleaned a big heating paid is laid down with a plastic bag over it, set to medium is placed in the tub.. He is offered a frozen thawed hopper - SNAP takes it like a champ... struggles with it some as he catches his bottom lip on the corner of his skin (only the top 2 layers of shed, not through the body to produce blood though)
He takes it all and looks around for more... we offer a second, he misses 3 times before finally biting down on his lower body full bite.. mouth open wide and POP bites himself NO WHERE NEAR the rat....
After coiling on himself for 7 minutes he releases and starts to look for the rat... finally laying in a nice ball on the heatpad...

He is taken out of the tub and placed in a 40 long tank with cyprss chips, two hides one on the warm and one on the cool side, he is given a bath tub and a rough rock of which to rub against. We go to bed....
When I get up at 4 am to check on him, nearly a full shed is in his tank and he is curled up on the warm side of the tank... apparently sleeping.
And - the eye "crinkle" was gone... obviously an eyecap

4 days later a hopper is offered again... after 4 attempts to strike the dead rat he opens his mouth wide and chomps down on his body - no where near the rat ..... seriously it makes me think of a teenage cutter... as if he's so frustrated that he's so hungry that he just bites himself... now we both know they dont "think" that way.. but it really does look like that.... we have noticed that his tongue will flicker out straight but more times than not it will come out in an L shape to the right... when he does coil up on a rat... he struggles HARD to uncoil to the left.... but this is ONLY when he is feeding. When being held for pleasure he coils both left and right turns left and right.. but when eating he can not successfully uncoil to the left.... After 45 minutes of struggling and him mutating the mouse beyond recognition he never ate it... an obvious defeat!

Have you ever seen such a thing before?
I am assuming that it's neurological....would you agree?
Thank you so much for reading this, I look forward to your feedback

I rescued one that had been treated for mites with flea spray. Obviously it's skin was horrible and cracked down to the fat layer in places. He ate weird and targeted poorly util he recovered from the toxins. He now eats normally most of the time. I also have an older king snake that will bite itself like that on occasion. No reason that we know of. If you stick to prekilled and let the snake find them it will reduce some of the problems associated with catching a moving object. Just had a hatchling ball wrap around a mouse and hang on...I figure ok its gonna eat and I don't check again until morning...it is still sitting there wrapped tightly around the now yucky mouse. My hubbie laughs and said I am just a magnet for the "abby normals"! Good luck with it.

It really disgusts me how so many people get away with mistreating reptiles whether out of ignorance or just not caring. If it were a dog or cat in comparable condition there would be community outrage and the person would be charged with animal cruelty. Instead, because its a 'gross, slimy' snake or lizard a blind eye is usually turned to the issue.
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Everyone has eaten and everyone has been eaten.

Did the person get reported to animal control? If not then of course he got away with it. Even if it is reported if the owner denies that it is his animal then no charges can be brought up (same thing would be done if it was a dog). An animal control officer has to obey the laws of the land when they investigate neglect. Now that the animal has been removed from the danger they might not be able to do much. The good thing is the animal is out of danger and looks to be in good hands now, sometimes that is all you can get done.

I received an email from a young lady (23) her boyfriend had the snake and he had been left with it with a short term roommate ran off in the night. Noone knows how to reach the original owner or what he was exposed to prior to 8 mths ago. For the past 8 mths he has eaten sporadically and shown all the signs I spoke of earlier....

No charges can be drawn against the neglector as he is no longer around, noone knows where he moved.

The young girl that called me had heard we were starting up a Reptile Rescue and hoped we could help him....

The only time I have seen these "blind strikes" were when the prey animal was not the strongest heat signature in sight. I'm assuming you are warming your prey items thoroughly to a higher temp than your snake. It could certainly be a neuro issue of some sort, but the question would be the origin of the issue. Is the snake growing well so far? If so maybe we can assume this problem is new-ish and hasn't stunted his growth so much as lack of food? In that case I would (as another poster stated) wonder about toxicity. Time will tell.