Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I keep a small group of alterna and have a male w/ a strange problem I've never seen before. I keep a fairly large group of NA milks, and have never seen this before in them either.
He has this concave that starts just behind his head on about 5 or 6 inches of his ventral. He looks kind of desiccated in the photos but I assure you he isn't. He is still very active and was last fed November 9th. He didn't have the con-caved ventral at that last feeding. He isn't wheezing or sneezing, but I did open his mouth to see if I could see anything unusual, and only found a slightly tacky saliva, but not alarming.

Have any of your seen this before? And any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.

Here he is as a robust adult before the con-caving. -Dell

I have not seen that problem before but, I am really hoping that your alterna can recover.

I was holding off replying in case someone else had some experience with this. I have never really noticed the concave appearance that your snake displays but the first thing that comes to mind is dehydration from either diarrhea or vomiting. It may not be obvious if your snake is kept on aspen or something similar. I have seen some alterna vomiting after brumation but 1 or 2 doses of flagyl usually solves the problem. Either way I would keep him warm and watch closely for more clues. Good Luck.

From what I can see in the first pic, he is blowing bubbles. Usually that indicates something respiratory. Your snake does not appear well. I have seen that with snakes that are experiencing cold symptoms. Without doing a culture it is impossible to know if antibiotics will work but worth a try. Be sure to have water available and provide a heat source. Keep him in a place where he can maintain his temp around 80 degrees or so. If it is viral, not much you can do except provide optimal care and hope he beats it. Definitely isolate him out of your snake room. If contagious, you could have a real problem. Good luck and keep us informed.

ECTimaeus

Could it be an injury? If you have a rack system with lidded boxes and they don't fit absolutely snug he may have mashed himself between the box and the lid trying to get out. If he's blowing bubbles it could be just because his throat is messed up and he can't swallow properly. You'd probably need an X-ray to determine that.

I would definately treat him as though it were possibly a contagious virus, infection, etc. and isolate him until you find out for sure.
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