Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What are fat deposits and are they anything to be concerned about?

Thanks,
Dan

A fat deposit is what it sounds like, a pocket of fat in a certain area of the snake usually in the lower 1/2 to 1/3 of the snake.

They don't exactly make the snake look very pretty, as you can usually see they have them just by looking at them...they're lumps at the rear of the snake. I equate it to something similar to cellulite on humans.

The snake may be too fat or at least was at one time. If it was me, and I already had a snake with fat deposits I would just live with it, however, I wouldn't ever buy a snake with them. Any animal that has too much fat can't be the healthiest thing as opposed to one that is nice and lean.
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alstiver@hotmail.com

1.0 2001 Coral snow cornsnake
0.1 2002 Pastel Ghost poss Het Amelanistic cornsnake
1.1 2002 Bloodred cornsnakes
0.1 1998 Het Hypo, Het Caramel cornsnake
1.0 2000 Hypo Het Caramel cornsnake
0.0.13 2004 Eggs (potentially normals, hypos, caramels, and ambers)

Good summary Amanda. I owned sisters, both of whom developed fat lumps around the age of three (despite being on a pretty standard feeding regime of one mouse every ten days). One of them died at the age of five, from a complication of egg-binding. The other lived a normal healthy life until she suffered a series of fits when she was fourteen - I lost her this month aged sixteen, having suffered two years of declining health.

Corns with fat deposits can have a good quality of life for a natural lifespan, although as Amanda says, they're not necessarily the ones you want to show off to people! Neither of my "lumpies" could have their final, fatal problems directly linked to their fat deposits. On the other hand, I wouldn't choose to own one with the same problem again unless it was a rescue. Just in case.

We've have a female that I really took my time to raise up. She is five years old and about 4 feet and was just large enough to lay eggs this season. She developed those cloacal deposits in the beginning of this Spring when she came out of hibernation.
She was only maintenance fed for her entire life, never fed in any large amount or frequency. I am sure there is something else going on to cause these deposits. Perhaps it is some genentic propensity but not neccesarily directly inheritable.
But who really knows.
Just my two pennies.

-Yasser
Spitfire Reptiles

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I think you're right there. The fact that the two problem girls were related made me wonder. But I think the clincher is the fact that I've kept other Corns on the same feeding regime and none have ever formed fat lumps.

My female Lumpy has those deposits. She is about 5 years old and has five kinks/knots in her spine. One of the knots is right over her vent. Here is what the deposits look like.