Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone seen this before.
Here is his story, He is a 50% poss het axanthic from an unproven line. When he was born he came out of the egg too early, he still had a vein or somthing comming out of his stomach were the yolk gets absorbed. It was sticking out of his stomach for about 4-6 days. I kept his cage real moist so it didn't dry out, and it finally went in. He seemed pretty good at first, he had his first shed, then I realized he always had his head twisted funny under his body. So I took him out put him on a table to watch him crawl around, he moved weird, his head would stay tilted to the side. So I waved my hand around him to get him to strike, when he did, he would flip over on his back, then he would panic twisting around till he got back on his stomach, he did this a few times, until I couldn't stand to watch it any more.
His clutch was 2 slugs, 1 infertile egg, and 5 eggs total of 8.
3 of the 5 eggs died off during incubation, 1.1 hatched. His sister is a beautiful animal real cool and unusual pattern, but very mean always strikes at me. He hasn't eatin yet but it's only been about 2 weeks after his first shed. I just don't think he will be able to. Has anyone seen this before?? What do I do?
Sorry so long. Thanks in advance for your help.

Jay Cassidy

Firstly, that "thing" sticking out of his belly, was his umbilicus. Normally it's gone by the time the snake emerges from the egg. I had a pastel boy have his still attached. It doesn't "go inside", it dries up and falls off. Secondly, post a pic of this little guy, he sounds like he's kinked, a temp spike in incubators sometimes cause these, it's a birth defect of the spine, causing it to grow kinked. He's not retarded, just deformed, doesn't stop me though.....

I'm sure it didn't dry up and fall off, I watched it go in day by day, I don't think that has to do with his retardation.
I had a retarded cat, and his head was always cocked to the side,
and when I was younger I had a retarded freind who would always cock his head to one side, thats why I figured the snake was retarded.

Jay Cassidy
cavemanreptiles.com

There used to be a retarded american alligator baby at my work. He would always swim cocked to one side and had to be in a cage by himself. I have no idea what happened to him, but he was several months onld when I saw him, so he was eating and healthy at the time. Things like this happen. When I get betta babies that have deformities, I feed them to my other fish. I adopted a kenyan sand boa with a spinal deformity, and she's fine. If he can eat and live a healthy life, then I'd keep him, but its up to you. It all depends on the situation, and how much effort you're willing to put into getting him to eat and keeping him alive, and even possibly finding him a good home if you can't keep him.

Having not seen the snake, I can all but guarantee that the umbilicus did not get sucked back into the snakes belly like some horror movie. It fell off.

I don't know. I looked in at him about 3 times a day, and every day it would get smaller, but not dried out shriveled up smaller, I'm pretty sure it went in. I looked for anything in his cage that would resemble it but there was nothing not even a piece of vermiculite. I keep all my animals on newspaper, I would have seen it. Just cause yours fell of doesn't mean that happens with every animal. That's not even what the main focus of my post was, I'm more wondering what to do with a retarded snake, then what happened to its umbilical cord.

Thanks
Jay

...that can go wrong during incubation/hatching and this snake may indeed have some neurological problem or other...

Many of these specimens are reluctant to feed, and if after offering a live fuzzy mouse/pink rat and no success, assist-feeding after a few weeks POST SHED should be considered. Often 3-4 assist-fed fuzzy mice is enough to "jump-start" these babies.

Assist=feeding a BP is a bit tricky and I recommend you observe an experienced person do it FIRST before attempting it. It's easy to injure a snake doing this procedure.

It's important to not wait too long before a first assist-feeding so the specimen doesn't decline in its condition.

Hope this helps!

Scott J. Michaels DVM
Serpent City

I know they can be tricky to get started, He's not my first hatchling. It's only been about 10 days since this little guy shed, I'm more worried about him being able to grab the pray animal, then be hungry for it. When he strikes he flips over to the one side, all the way over to his back, I might try him on pre-killed. Thanks

Jay Cassidy
cavemanreptiles.com