Need info/tips on snake blindness

[ultimuttone]

After working through various issues with one of my snakes it appears that the possible cause of some of the other problems is due to blindness. I have dealt with partial blindness due to neglect of a previous rescue, but never what appears to be a birth defect(he is an '06) and total lack of vision. If any of you have had experience with this and can give me any info or insight on how to get him self sufficient I would greatly appreciate it.

[bitsy]

I have a couple of Corns with sight problems - one from birth and the other has developed cataracts as he's aged (he's 18 now).

My main tip would be to always have viv/tank furnishings in the same place and try not to move things around too much. Especially goes for the water. Once they've found water, hides etc, they seem to be able to find them again. When I feed them, I always put mine back into the viv so that the water bowl is the first thing they find, just reinforces it (don't know how logical that is, but it gives me peace of mind!).

Picking them up can be a bit dicey, but they do a lot of their "locating" by heat. I take my time, put my hand near them and let them register that I'm there, before I move to pick them up. The one with the sight problem from birth is now so confident that she'll come out of the viv of her own accord now - I don't have to go in and get her.

My old fella takes quite a while to register that I'm in the viv. Sometimes I have to gently make some movements in the substrate before he realises that I'm near him.

The key seems to be no sudden movements and don't pick them up without giving them some sort of warning.

Feeding doesn't seem to be a problem. I feed outside the viv, in smallish Geo-flat-type tanks. Done like that, there's no way that the Corn can miss the fact that they're sharing a small space with a defrosted mouse. Warming it slightly before feeding gives them something else to latch onto.

The younger of my two is actually one of my most reliable feeders. The only drawback with that, is that she puts on weight quite easily. She doesn't move round her viv very much and so never works it off. I have to be quite careful how much she gets. I don't know if it's lack of confidence due to her eyesight or just that she prefers napping to exercise!

Hope that helps.

[Bobo's Mama]

Hi Traci! Here is a link you might find interesting. As far as I know, this guy is still a member here, and also still has this snake. So you could PM him as well as read the link. Hope that helped. Got any pics of the little guy?

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14816&highlight=Blind

[ultimuttone]

Thank you both for your input.

Becky-It is the little bp I have been struggling with(I know not corn-but it is a general health issue). I thought perhaps he had retained eyecaps from his less than perfect first shed(in process when I got him) and rather than stress him further when he was already pretty weak figured I would wait and see how they looked after a good shed. His weight is now good and he had a complete shed. But the eyes are obviously cloudy and not 'blue', he has no reaction to any visual stimulus-light, movement, etc. He seems happy enough to hang out with me. wander around a bit and typical ball behavior. However he still will not eat, drink, soak without help. I thought he was just extremely stupid, which he may be, but I was curious how much the lack of sight would affect him. Since he does not find the food or water on his own perhaps he has other sensory problems as well. Hmmm...

[PtDnsr]

We have a ball python that lost his eyesight in one eye and lost his other eye due to retained eyecaps from a previous owner. He actually does fairly well and is one of our more docile snakes. The only issue that I have with him is that he will now only take live mice (we don't feed any bigger) but he's also never had trouble killing the mice. If you search I'm sure you can find pics and updates using "Fluffy" and "blind".

~Katie