My skinny Craigslist rescue

The other day, I was perusing Craigslist looking for a snake terrarium for a friend. What I found was a horrifyingly underweight snow corn (advertised as an albino ) sitting on a bed of reptile sand. :eek1:

After many emails back and forth with the seller, and with hubby's full support, I drove out and picked her up today. The owner said virtually nothing to me; I think he's just happy to be rid of her. She has a name but it's a bland human name I've already forgotten, so I'll be working on something more creative. (Any ideas?)

Once I got her home, I put her in temporary housing and started dumping out her tank (which is a nice set up, minus the reptile sand--I'm guessing maybe they bought a big set up at PetSmart/Petco years ago). I took all the tank decor and soaked them in a water-bleach solution, dumped out all that abominable sand, rinsed out the tank, then let it sit partially filled with a bleach-water solution. I weighed her and took photos, wiped down the rather grossly dusty screen lid, then dumped and rinsed out everything. No worries--she and everything in contact with her is under quarantine.

Thankfully, she pooped and peed a very normal looking pile on the way home. That's a very good sign there isn't an impaction, which has been my fear. It also suggests that she's in such crappy condition due to pure neglect.

And indeed, she is horrifyingly underweight. At approximatelly four years of age and over 3' long, this poor girl is an appalling 82g...not even breaking the 100g mark. Hopefully we'll be able to turn her around soon.

Pics:
Sitting in my passenger seat, ready for the drive home


Belly scales--I'm not familiar with snows; does she appear motley to you>


Head appears oversized, neck is scrawny, spine is immediately prominent


Her eyes are bright and clear, though


Weighing in--that container she's in weighs 357g


New and improved set up (don't worry, it's not staying in front of a window; just put it there for now)


I plan to offer her a fuzzy in a few days and go from there. Poor girl. I'll keep you all updated on her progress here.

Try weighing her is a smaller container. I think your scale may be off. I've got small yearlings that weigh that much and are nowhere near her thickness and length. She definitely does look thin, but from the photos she can't be that thin. She'd be a bag of bones and skin at that point. I'm thinking your weight figures are off due to how she's distributed within the tub. Try using something no bigger than the weighing surface.

Definitely stay small on meals and get a fecal sample to a vet ASAP for both a float and a smear, do this at least 3 times to make sure nothing went amiss in previous samplings. You don't want to blow her kidney and liver with even small frequent meals. I'd even be worried if she tests positive on anything from a fecal sample as if she's truly that small meds could potentially put her internals into shock.

Yeah, I was wondering that about the scale. I'll reweigh her when I get home.

How often do you think I should be offering her food? I was thinking a fuzzy once a week at first, assuming she'll take f/t. I want it to be often enough to help her regain some weight, but not so often it puts her system in shock.

Seller said he fed her 2 live mice Monday, which I'm at least partially inclined to believe because she defecated today. I tossed that when I cleaned the cage BTW so I'll need to wait until next time for a fecal sample.

Poor little one, I'm glad she is on good hands now! I think your plan of one small prey item a week for the time being is a good one. Please keep us updated as she progresses, I want to see her fat and healthy!!

Thank you. I'm having a hard time discerning her pattern, as light as she is. She seems motley-ish but I can't tell for sure. What do you think?

Here she is being re-weighed using a different, more accurate container. It weighs 114g, so if subtraction still works , she actually weighs 189g. That makes a lot more sense--she's definitely skinny, but not death-skinny.

I too am so glad she has a new home with you guys!! Thank goodness.

Thank you. I'm thinking of calling my skinny California girl Runway--or Hollywood. What do you think?

When you weigh her, put the container on the scale first, hit the on button (it also says "zero") then the scale should be at zero, or tare, weight. Then put her in and see what it says, that is her true weight, no need for remedial math!

I like "Hollywood"; something fancy, she deserves it!

I fed her today--and, as I assumed, her appetite is NOT at all an issue. Poor girl; I wanted to feed her more, but I know I need to go easy on her right now.

Here she is on the scale, zeroed with the container on it. You know, teaching math as long as I have, it didn't occur to me to just zero the scale. It feels like cheating!


She went right to the mouse, a hairless fuzzy (they were on sale this summer, so I have 100 of 'em...well, probably more like 92 now):


Swallowing:


Done and eagerly looking for more. I'm amazed how that teeny meal made such a big lump on her. My son's yearling ate the same size meal today, and the lump is about the same in her.


I'll feed her again in a week. Poor thing; I so wish I could give her more!

I bought her an UTH yesterday...She's resting now on the hot spot of her tank.

I fed her again yesterday--girl was HUNGRY. She immediately downed the f/t fuzzy I offered her and was very eager for more. I don't want to shock her system, but I do want to get weight on her.

Do you think next week's feed (her third with me) I can either increase meal size or offer her two fuzzies instead of one? Or should I stay with the single fuzzy for a bit longer?

I'd be willing to bet you could double up fuzzies with her and not worry about a regurge. Stick with the weekly feedings; you want to just slowly build her up. Tough to see, but she does kind of look "motleyish". Pretty snake, just needs a lil grub

Thanks Chris. I feel SO BAD just giving her the one fuzzy and right after inhaling it, she's like OMG! MORE NOW! Being able to double her feed will be sweet.

She's so stinkin' light, it still throws me off. When I take her out of the tank to feed her, I'm always shocked by the weight I feel in my hands versus the weight I expect when I pick up a snake if her frame.

Those hairless fuzzies should also be easier on her digestion than regular fuzzies.

I think I can also see a bit of a motley look to her pattern too.

how is he doing??
I am actually kind of shaken up, I have never seen a corn in this condition before... You are a good person.

She's doing great, thank you! I fed her two hairless fuzzies tonight and she just inhaled them. Seriously, she downed them so fast I thought maybe the mouse somehow was lost under her or fell out, heh. I was feeding my son's yearling at the same time (the same two fuzzy meal, in fact), but proportionately Izzy is much smaller so it took her about twice as long. Then again, a fuzzy ought to be a snack for a snake Runway's size.

I weighed her tonight, and she's gaining! She's up 6g from last week, and up 11g since I brought her home. She likely dropped that little bit of weight as she started eliminating more regularly with more regular feeds--another foster I had went through a similar system shock after his first meal with me. That one didn't poop for 6 days after his first meal!!

Just realized you can see a bit of my son's amel yearling next to her.

Here she is post-feed, nice big happy lump on the left side:

Whoops, reverse that: she's up 6g from the day I brought her home, and 11g from last week.

Glad to see that she's gaining. She sure is pretty, even though she's thin.

Weekly update: Runway held her wait this week, but hasn't gained yet. She weighed in at 193g:


I also took this opportunity to take a few close up pics of this pretty girl:







She has a voracious appetite, and the regular feedings have woken her up. Now when I reach in her tank to take her out, she's immediately darting about, watching my hands very closely, and looking for food, NOW. I think I'll start taking her out every few days now just to get her used to being handled. I think once she learns to associate her feeding bin with food--and not me reaching into her tank--she'll settle. Probably once she's not so hungry, too! She was so ravenous when I went to put in the second fuzzy, she nearly bit me, and I had to distract her away from my hand. Then when I reached in to take her out, she struck at my hand--figuring she might, I was wearing potholders, heh.

I'm thinking of increasing her to 3 fuzzies next week--maybe doing a gradual increase in meal size after every 2-3 feeds or so.

Oh good night, she held her WEIGHT. I can't even blame autocorrect for that one.