Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have a large collection of garter and water snakes, but ive never been faced with this, a friend of mine brought a snake they actualy caught on a trotline, its a big, VERY gravid northern water snake. i was able to remove hook leaving no more damage than what she had when she came here, there is a small [1/4 inch] hole in the side of her throat, that whenever she drink wayer, a portion of it falls through the whole! shes not wheezing, or bleeding, so i dout her windpipe is injured. im just worried about what to do about this hole, and theres no reptile vet anywhere nearby! help!!!

use peroxide and neosporin on the outside of the wound. keep the snake on dry substrate like newsprint and use a small waterbowl so he cannot completely submerge until the wound heals. If he stays in the water, it can cause infection and delay the healing process. Clean with peroxide daily and reapply the deosporin.

I'm no expert, but I've rescued snakes that had recently fought shovels and raccoons and were in serious trouble and they all recovered (including the buttermilk with its guts hanging out). So apparently what works for people works for snakes too.
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1.0.0 Great Plains Ratsnake
1.0.0 Corn, Lavender Aztec het for Amel
0.1.0 Black Ratsnake
0.0.1 Texas Rat (tame)
1.0.0 Broad Banded Water Snake, Hypo
1.0.0 Black Bassador Retriever
2.1.0 Godchildren, 1 Evil, 2 possible hets

thanks alot, im new to the forum and am a little sad that my first post was this, but shes doin great, i lukily had pretty much done what you said already[i used diluted iodine instead of peroxide], so i hope shell do good, if it wasnt for the fact that it was a wound from the inside out, i would just stitched it, its large enough, plus, i had a vet teach me fecals, stitching, general care of such things, sence theres no reptile vet close by. i was just worried that because of the nature of the wound, it might have absessed. i have one other quick question, how do i place pictures on a post? thank you so much!

Nerodia are pretty used to puncture wounds in the throat (they often get them from eating catfish and other spiny prey), so it's not a serious injury for them. I'm sure your girl will be just fine.

for posting pics I use photobucket (www.photobucket.com). I think the IMG Code that it gives is what you use to post pics here, but I'm not positive. Paste the code in the message box and hit PREVIEW MESSAGE to see if it shows up. If not, try one of the other codes that photobucket gives for you photo.
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1.0.0 Great Plains Ratsnake
1.0.0 Corn, Lavender Aztec het for Amel
0.1.0 Black Ratsnake
0.0.1 Texas Rat (tame)
1.0.0 Broad Banded Water Snake, Hypo
1.0.0 Black Bassador Retriever
2.1.0 Godchildren, 1 Evil, 2 possible hets

thanks, ill give it a try, dont have pics of her yet, ill post one, but it may not be a water, lol

lets see if this works-06cb eastern gartersnake