Well, in 20 years of keeping snakes I never had this happen, so I guess I'm due.
I put my Male lavender in the cage with my Opal to start a second clutch, and within 10 minutes he had a prolapsed hemipenis. I saw his thinger with wood chips stuck to it when I looked up into the rack while cleaning other cages. The really worrisome thing is that there was some puss-like substance coming out of both sides of his vent, where the hemipenes are sheathed, so it looks like he has some kind of systemic infection in there. (From the previous breeding maybe?) and I guess I will have to start antibiotics when I get home tonight.
I bandaged it up and put some witch hazel (the active andti-hemerrhoidal agent in most leading products) on it and put a lot of moist green moss in the cage, as a substrate.
Any other ideas?
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Jeremy J. Anderson
Gem State Reptiles
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PROLAPSE! Doh!
Replies (4)
Oh, and I have a vet appointment tomorrow with someone who supposedly knows reptiles. This town sucks for Herp Vets. We'll see about this new one.
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Jeremy J. Anderson
Gem State Reptiles
But I went to the vet today, and it turns out that he knows reptiles well enough. It is in fact, a prolapsed hemipene, and I kept it viable by keeping it moist yesterday, so he should be able to save it. My girlfriend picked him up from the Vet today while I am at work, and he seems to be okay, whatever that means. I don't know if he'll ever breed again, though..bummer.
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Jeremy J. Anderson
Gem State Reptiles
Hi Jeremy,
You and your snake have my sympathy. Knock on wood, but I haven't had that happen to any of my breeder males yet. To keep it clean while it's healing, I'd probably switch the substrate to paper towel. Good luck with the snake and thanks for posting about your experience. It's something that can happen to breeding snakes and keepers should be aware of it.
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Lora
thanks, he is on newspaper, and seems to be doing fine. Doc has him on a course of antibiotics, I am sure it will all heal up.
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Jeremy J. Anderson
Gem State Reptiles
