Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i just fed my snakey and usually shes fine with live but today she got bitten! she didnt bleed but a little teeny patch of scales arent attatched to teh skin..... =o( im skerd.... i need help. tell me what to do! please!
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*Satheara Sin*
Satheara@yahoo.com
Life's a Sin

Two things.

neosporin (or some other anti-bacterial ointment on the wound site.

Switch to pre-killed food.

keep her cage clean and dry, use neosporin on the wound and keep it clean as well. now, switch to either fresh killed or f/t. you can freshly kill the rodent yourself if you can handle it..the best way i have found is to either drown it or put it in a bag and slam it off the wall...sounds cruel but it's the quickest and easiest way to do it

thank you two!!! i appreciate it ALOT... problem is she didnt eat for like a month until i decided to take home a live one and she ate it... and then i tried f/t again and she wont eat them...but maybe freshly killed.. ah i dont think i can do that tho...
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*Satheara Sin*
Satheara@yahoo.com
Life's a Sin

There are things you can try to get her switched to frozen/thawed. You can put the rodent into a paper bag with her and leave it for several hours. Also, I'd make sure the thawed rodent has some heat in it because part of the way a python finds it's pray is to use it's heat sensors and if it suddenly doesn't have that heat to sense it may not recognize only the smell.

A more humane way to kill a rodent is if you have access to dry ice. Get a tall container of some sort, put some warm water in a smaller container and place it into the bigger container. Drop some dry ice into the water and put the rodent in the bigger container. The CO2(I think) will kill the rodent w/out it suffering. I couldn't slam it against a wall either.

Oh yeah, another thing you can try with f/t is to expose the brain matter and then try to feed it. It's not as difficult banging an already dead rodent to expose it's brain as a live one.

FYI, read some care sheets on the net and you will probably find additional ways to get the to switch from live to f/t.

Good luck!!!
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Rob Talkington

Don't worry too much. Snakes get bitten all the time in nature. It may result in an ugly scar, but that's usually the worst it will be. Just let it heal. If you are worried about this in the future, then you can feed pre-killed food items
Justin J

Definately use some neosporin or polysporin. It could possbily leave a small scar. If you want to continue to use live stun it first to reduce the risk of it biting your snake.

Please switch to prekilled! Even if you buy live mice and whack them on a table to kill them, it is actually less painful for the mouse, so it's not a humanitarian issue or anything. I buy live mice for my '03 hatchling, whack them into oblivion, and place them in the cage with her. Within minutes they're gone, nd this is with a snake that was formerly fed live (until, at her former home, a mouse bit her and traumatized her for life.) Once she saw that the prekilled mice were dead and harmless, she started eating again (after about 2 months, since she had gotten bitten by the mouse.)
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"One man's pet is another man's feeder."

I "feel" your pain. I have a male breeder albino ball python who ONLY takes live rats. I supervise the feedings by keeping a pencil in hand. When he grabs the rat I immediate ensure that he has a good hold. If not, then I'm ready with the pencil and I shove it in the rat's mouth. The rat's busy biting on the end of the pencil.

However, my ball did get a minor bite last week. I just rubbed it with hydrogen peroxide to clean it and spread some antibiotic cream on it.

Always be vigilant when offering live food. Go pre-killed/frozen-thawed when possible.

If your looking for a "tutorial" on switching to p/k or f/t, check out the FAQ section on proexotics' web site. Robyn at Pro is top notch, and his advice is sound.