Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So my male mexican black kingsnake developed this lump about six inches south of his mouth (in the neck region) so I tiook him to the vet and of course they gave him antibiotics and said it was probably a bite from a mouse. I do prekill and some times I just don't thump hard enough...dammit.

any way after the first round the lump goes down and all seems well. a month later the lump is back so back to the vet we go and voila more antiboitics and the story goes that if they don't work this time we are looking at surgery because we all know that snake pus is cheesy. so I'm looking at booking him fr this coming monday and when I go in to check on him I find this...thing.

Looks like a slug (unfertile ova) but dark with a weird yellowish spot on it and lo and behold the lump is gone! I've put the thing in the fridge for pathology but what I'm looking for is if any one has ever seen or heard of such a thing ever before.

And while I'm thinking of the obvious, he has not been with a female in the last year. I keep him in a sweater box rack on aspen bedding and an ambient temp of about 85-78. He actually ate right off the bat after we cleaned up the thing as he has not eaten the whole time the lump was there.

Reptile abscesses can become encapsulated, essentially forming a thin membrane around the pus and containing it. If you are lucky they can sometimes spontaneously work their way out toward the surface. That would by my first thought on what you found. Your vet will likely recommend flushing the remaining skin cavity with a chlorhexidine solution.

I agree with the encapsulation part but there is no exit wound. Possibly regurgitated? Can one flush a cavity when there is no cavity apparent from the outside? He has eaten one small mouse now and seems to swallow with no difficulty.

Either way I am going to have a path done on it just so I know. I'm hoping the animal is completely recovered and can continue to breed. I wanted to use him this season.

I can't imagine that the lump could have worked its way down into the esophagus to be regurgitated, nor would your out-come likely be as positive if it had. Was the lump right under the skin surface, stretching the scales a bit? There may be a barely noticeable slit between the scales from which it emerged.
Let us know what your vet says.

So the conclusion was...a mouse meatball...rotting.

The vet speculated that he must have attempted to swallow an unwilling, still living mouse and it got stuck. He was unable to regurgitate it right away and since it began to decompose his body treated as an infection and encapsulated it. Having him on the antibiotics prevented it from becoming a systemic infection and he was finally able to 'gurge it on his own.

When the vet incised that ...thing, and showed it to me it looked like a hot dog with a layer of fur filling and coated in a hard nasty shell. The smell alone...

Anyway he is fine, no parasites and no lingering nasties but I am going to skip cooling him just to keep his immune system in peak function. I will see if he is hot to trot any way, if not at least he is going to make it for next year!