Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a male ball python that has injured himself from rubbing his nose on the side of his bin. He is rubbing his face on the middle flat part just above his heat sensors. He has done it to the point where there is a pretty large hole. Has anyone heard of this happening before and is there anything that I should do to help him?

I've had this problem quite often. In my case it appears to be due to me using sterlite tubs and the snakes just nosing their way around and getting a little too rough with themselves. Ball pythons seem to like and use their heads as wedges and nooks and crannies. In my case they had been growing rapidly so I just moved them to a bigger case that had fewer little plastic ridges to hurt themselves on and their head all healed in a few months. It didn't stop them from eating though. It seemed to only happen to snakes I was feeding very aggressively. Don't know if it was just a coincidence or that growing fast made their skin not as tough. I don't claim to know anything, this is just what I experianced.

Josh Jackson
Central Ohio

I am using sterilite 32 qt tubs right now, which I think is plenty large enough for him. I just hope there isn't anything wrong with him, and I hope he is not in pain. It is a pretty significant hole on his nose. I let him zoom around on the carpet in my livingroom for a little while to watch what he would do. He was rubbing his head on everything. I put some unscented lotion on the hole to see if that would make any difference for him. Any other advice from anyone would be greatly appreciated!

Unscented lotion? I'd try something like Neosporin or other antibiotic, just make sure it doesn't contain any kind of pain reliever...

he doesn't like the cage for some reason...you have to figure out why...

too hot ,too cold ,too humid ,too dry, wants a girl(look into this)...,too airy, no air holes, wrong substrate, smells....

.....they do it but they shouldn't....

good luck....
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........JY

Use Neosporin, triple antibiotic lotion or something similar. Better than lotion and will help it to heal.