Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm just posting to try to get as much information as possible.

I went downstairs this afternoon to find one of my hatchling banana kings curled up the floor. The cats had somehow gotten her out of her homemade rack tub. I found the tub kitty-cornered.

Anyway, I thought for sure that she was dead. She didn't move when I picked her up. I sat down and started turning her over in my hands. I started to cry. After all, this is entirely my fault. I have a new rack system ordered and it should be here in less than a week.

But I rubbed her chin and she flicked her tongue. I rubbed it again, and she flicked her tongue again.

I got her back in her tub, with heat and clean paper towels. It happened about 5 hours ago now. She is up and moving normally around her tub.

I checked her wounds (maybe 5 small punctures) and kind of moved the skin around, but it doesn't appear that any of the actual punctures when deeper than the surface skin. I've slathered the injuries in triple antibiotic ointment.

She is also due to eat...how long should I wait before offering food?

And I'm planning on calling my vet in the morning. But in the meantime, I would like to know what a vet could actually do for this snake.

Pumping her full of oral antibiotics would be stressful, and probably crash her intestinal flora. Injectible would seem to be nearly impossible, and again, very stressful.

If anyone can offer any thoughts on this, I would surely appreciate it. It will be nearly impossible to talk hubby (the money-maker) into spending $100-150 on a $30 snake...but it would be a whole different story if it were the torts!!!

Any help would be greatly appreciated, the more information, the better.

it sounds bad, but don't stress! Let it be for a few days and watch it when you can. Secure the caging from the cat and let's see if that little king will bounce back! Give it a week to heal, quiet with a little extra heat and plenty of fresh water and it should heal. It may well be traumatized by the cat, and maybe a short winter's nap is in order. When was the last time it fed and how many meals does it have in it? Maybe a few more clues and someone else may have a better answer for you. Hang in there, snakes are pretty tough!
Todd Hughes

She ate a week ago on a f/t lg pinky mouse. Since I have had her, she has probably eaten 4 times...I forgot to check my log. She isn't a new-new hatchling. Got a little meat on her. She has fresh water...like I said, she is on paper towels. Cat has pretty well gotten me miffed. Cage is secured now. Hopefully if my rack ships out tomorrow, it will be here by Monday. I knew I never should have tried to build my own rack with these stinkin cats in the house. I'd post a couple pics, but I don't know how yet on this forum. There is no injury to her head at all either...which is good. I'm just hoping that one puncture won't put her under. The smaller punctures have already closed together. It is just this one tear, but it still doesn't appear to be any deeper than the flesh.

It sounds like what you're doing is fine as long as the wounds are merely on the surface. But keep in mind that it's possible your little guy might have deeper injuries than what meets the eye, which is often the case with cat attacks. Ever had a cat just nab you with one of its claws? Think of how big and how deep the gash went even though all you could see on the skin was a tiny cut.

Ultimately, it's your call. I've struggled with similar decisions regarding stress and non-surefire vet treatments. I think it pays to at least confer with a qualifid vet about it.
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www.BugChick.com

chickabowwow

Sorry to hear about your snakes injuries. I once received an adult milk snake thet the police found & beat the crap out of because "they thought it was a venomous coral snake"??? They beat her up pretty badly, no major cuts but her head was swelled up to the size of a golf ball. I took her home, kept her warm & as soon as the swelling went down she took a small mouse. A few months later i bred her and she produced a nice clutch of eggs for me. So keep an eye on the cuts for any sign of infection, keep her warm and give her a smaller than normal meal for her next feeding. Snakes are pretty tough, keep us posted on her progress. ~ Mike

Keep the wounds clean and dont worry about food. Make sure the snake is warm, maybe even increase your temps lightly. Make sure the cage its in stays really clean in fact I would keep it on paper towel and change it as soon it gets soiled. Ive seen snakes with some pretty rough injuries shake em off. As long as nothing vital was punctured I think its fine. The fact that it seems to be moving around okay seems to indicate that. Good luck !

Keith
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My roomy has an albino banded kingsnake that escaped from her cage and crawled under the snake room door right into Ms. Kitty's domain. Kitty brought her up the stairs and dropped her in front of the TV for me. It didn't register that this was his new snake! She had some puncture marks, none close to any organs as far as we could see. We set her up in a better secured tub, clean paper towels, water, neosporin, etc. just as you have. Two days later she ate with vigor. We have named her "PP" for "puncture proof". She's beautiful and has no scars from her encounter. I hope your baby has the same results. Sounds like you are taking good care of her.

Hi there,

A similar thing happened to me in the fall, I left a baby GA king's drawer open when I went to answer the phone and (surprise, surprise) it escaped. Two days later, my fiance's cat brought the snake to me in her mouth. In my shock, I watched the cat drop the snake, look up at me and quickly re-grab it with a good bite to prevent its escape... and drop it again. I finally snapped out of my daze and grabbed the little swiss cheese eastern.

I did for this snake what I always do when one of my charges incurs a good skin puncturing injury (usually a stubborn ball python that won't take f/t). I let the critter soak in a very weak peroxide/water bath. I judge the amount of peroxide to add to the h2o very simply, I keep adding a capful at a time into the water until I see the peroxide start to bubble a little on the wound. Then I leave the snake alone for a time (usually 20 -30 minutes) to work the sterilizing peroxide into the wound area. After that, I place the snake in his/her comfy cage and leave it alone for a while.

Snakes are incredibly resilient and can usually fight off most infections if they are in a low stress evironment and have access (not forced) to a warmer area to elevate immune function. I say not forced, because the snake will want to move from cool to hot, and by simply making the cage hotter, you don't allow the necessary choices for the animal to heal itself. You'll increase stress and actually make things worse.

Like Keith said, I wouldn't worry about food for a couple of weeks. He will probably enter a shed cycle soon in order to repair the damage. Give him a couple of weeks and if he goes "in the blue" , you could feed him after the shed if he is not too skinny.

I used to use all of those ointments, but they ruined the sheen of the snake and did little obvious good for sub-dermal wounds. Some topical ointments also restrict oxygen flow to the area and actually make things worse. I also used to use straight peroxide to cleanse wounds, but that dries (actually burns) the skin and causes scarring. However, a mild peroxide bath has proven to work quite well in the rare event that I think the animal could use a little help. good luck.

Will

Thanks for all the input you guys. It has been a great help.

Well, the snake was hunting around for food, so before I read any replies that said to really wait, I went ahead and gave her a very small pinky mouse this afternoon...which she downed with gusto. It has been about 4 hours and she is still keeping it down.

She does have a warmer area and a cooler area to go to. She has been moving from place to place and doesn't appear to be stressed. She was at room temp (73) before she was nabbed, but I think with the little heat mat, she is closer to 95 warm and 85 cool....(still waiting on the new rack). She has a good sized water bowl available should she feel the need to soak herself.

I'm going to keep her on paper towels. I think I'm going to try soaking her in a dilute betadine solution and see if I can't open up the holes a little bit to make sure there are not any abcesses forming. The smaller holes did not scab up, but the skin pulled together. So I'm going to try to open those up a bit.

But I'm going to wait till tomorrow to try soaking her and working on the holes just to give her a chance to digest.

I think I'll know by tomorrow anyway if she isn't going to keep the pinky down.

Keep your fingers crossed for her. I'm doing everything I can think of and a lot of what everyone has mentioned. Kelly