Mold and Health Problems

[MindUtopia]

I have been away for a few weeks and left my corn, Petey, in the care of a friend who has some experience with snakes. I have been back a couple days and I've been noticing that Petey has been less active than normal. I went to feed him tonight and it took him much longer to catch the scent of and to ingest a f/t pinkie. Normally it only takes about 3 minutes for him to take the whole pinkie, but tonight it took a good 10 minutes or so. While he was feeding I noticed that there were two drops of what looked like blood or bloody saliva that dripped out of his mouth. After he finished eating, I went to clean out his cage and found that the whole front of the cage was wet (I'm assuming from spilled water from his water dish) and moldy. I'm concerned now because I know corns can easily get respiratory infections (heck, I am severely allergic to mold and have respiratory problems and now I know why I have felt sick!). Could his lethargy and the bleeding during feeding be signs of a health problem caused by the mold in his cage? I've completely scrubed his cage and his water dish (which also had a brown film all over it - so much for my friend taking good card of him!!) and changed his bedding, but I just want to know if there is anything I should be looking out for or if I should take him to a vet. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!
Karen

[CHARMER]

I am sorry to hear about the incident! I am not an expert by any means so take my advice lightly and hopefully someone with more experience will reply. For now however, I have never heard of a snake bleeding from the mouth due to an R.I. However, I have read that you should pay attention to their breathing, listen for wheezing or clicking sounds, an open mouth, or a swollen or bloated body. I think that lethargy and a decrease in appetite can also be symptoms. Oh and stringy mucus in the nose or mouth.

Hope this helps a little and good luck! Hope he perks up!

[ghosthousecorns]

Are you sure the blood was from the snake and not from the mouse? They can be messy eaters sometimes.
It's a bummer that your friend didn't take good care of him. I haven't had a RI yet *knock wood* but Charmer described the symptoms and doing a search under 'respiratory' should also get you lots of info. AFAIK a bloody mouth would be more likely caused by the snake getting bitten or cutting itself somehow,

[MindUtopia]

Yeah I was thinking that it is possible that the blood was from the pinkie and that I may have never seen that before simply because it never took him that long to eat before. But just in case I thought I'd throw it in there. Fortunately, he seems to be acting a little more normal and is out and about and chillin on his log on the warm side of his tank. So hopefully he is fine, but I'll still keep my eye on him for the next few days.


Maybe he was just sade because he missed me! :)