Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This isn't a pet, but life has been interesting for this guy for about the past 7 months so I thought I'd share the story. I work at a wildlife rehab center, and we got a 4 1/2 foot black rat snake in last June with an infection in his mouth. The side of his head was ballooned up and his right eye lost function because of the wound. We put him on IV drugs to fight the infection and he seemed to be happy with our makeshift enclosure for him. Since then, the infection hasn't cleared up, although he did finally lose the scale that was covering his right eye after two sheds, and he became a "mascot" of sorts for the center. He's been on several different meds since then, but nothing seemed to be working, so he finally had surgery to remove some of the infected tissue in an attempt to restore function in his eye about a month ago. It didn't clear the infection up, but his eye works now, so he went in for a second surgery last week. He's doing okay, and we have him on pain meds as well as a couple of other ones now that the vet gave him, and we're expecting a full recovery soon. We're expecting him to be fully functional again when he recovers, so as long as he can still hunt, we're going to finally be able to return him to the wild. If not, he'll stay with us as part of our educational animal group (most of the rest of our educational animals are raptors or mammals, so he'll have his own niche there for sure if he has to stay).

One thing that really struck me about him is how calm he is. Anytime I've come across rat snakes in the wild around here, they've always been very aggressive when handled. Jeeves, as he's come to be known, is the nicest snake I've ever worked with in my life. He'll gladly sit on your shoulders when you're doing computer work or just hang out while his cage is being cleaned. When he first came in, I was the one who gave the first medical exam, and even then he was as calm as could be. He's never tried to bite anyone (unlike the other wild ones I've been around) or showed any aggression aside from shaking his tail (which stopped after a week or two). He really made me see rat snakes in a different light, and hopefully sometime soon he'll be released back into the wild where he came from.

First of all, thank you for taking the time to take care of this Black Rat snake. I know they're common, but they perform a vital role in their local ecosystem. Sounds like you are working with the vet and really doing all you can to help this snake recover. This may sound sort of strange, but I've found that many wild animals relax in the hands of a well meaning care giver- especially when you are doing something critical to their well being. I've rehabbed a few different animals and in general, they were less defensive when they were ill and really needed help. I hope your rat snake recovers and can be released back into the wild, but a life as an educational animal is also a good thing (for the people you educate and for the animal if it is unable to hunt effectively). Black rat snakes are quite variable in temperament, but the ones I've worked with have usually settled down pretty quickly in captivity.
They're great snakes, and I wish the one you are working with a speedy recovery.
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Lora

Actually that doesn't sound strange at all to me. We usually see about 4000 animals per year and I've noticed that in many of the adult animals that come in.

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Tom
TCJ Herps
"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

Hmmmm...from what you've said it occurs to me that perhaps Jeeves has decided where he'd like to live? He sounds like the perfect candidate to fill your reptile demonstration animal niche. Best of luck with him!

regards,
althea

I am glad that this fella has found people to care for him.
I don't think you need to worry too much about his hunting abilities,somke years ago we got a call to our local nature center to "remove this horrible animal" What we found was about a five foot one-eyed black rat.He had some pretty bad scarring on the righ t side of his head,there was obviously no eye left on that side,other than that,he was a perfectly healthy snake.
As long as Black-jack,or one-eyed Jack,was not startled on his blind side,he was as docile as could be.After a month or so of observation he was releassed.I never saw that he had any troubles feeding in captivity and he seemed to be a bit on the stout side on his own.

I feel that your fella will be ok to return to the wild,or be a program animal,no matter how his eye seems to be