Corn Snake Injury - Not eating

[DrunkJedi]

A few weeks ago my thermometer fell off in my snake's terrarium and somehow the adhesive was still sticky enough to get stuck to her neck. It couldn't have been there for more than an hour but when I walked in she was slithering around and dragging this thing along with her. I removed it as gently as I could but it did a bit of damage to 2 scales, since then she has lost interest in eating. Normally she has a great appetite and will usually latch onto the mouse before I can even fully put her down into the feed tank. Now she looks like she has more interest in finding a way out.

Besides the injury everything is normal, her temps are all good, same terrarium, same bedding etc.

I attached a picture, it's pretty terrible since I had to resize it a bunch of times in order to upload.

Any help would be appreciated though. It's my first time having a problem with her since I adopted her 1.5yrs ago so it stresses me out a bit.

Thanks

 

[jagodzinski]

Hi, first of all welcome. Its a little hard to tell from the pic, is the scale torn though? And its the belly scales? My first recommendation would be after an injury to switch to papertowel as it is cleaner and smoother, to limit risk of infection and also prevent the substrate from irritating the healing scales.

Now on to feeding, how many times has she refused? A few weeks seems really scary to us but snakes can go months as long as they are in good body condition. Its possible that going off food is completely unrelated to the injury (just the season), but maybe not. To establish how to move forward, can you tell us what you have tried to get her to eat? What size mice are you feeding, how do you prepare them? This could help us tailor some advice.

I'm sorry that happened to snakey, hopefully you have all adhesives out the viv now, snakes are so sneaky they will get stuck on anything sticky.

Keep us updated and best of luck!

 

[DrunkJedi]

Hi Jago, thanks.

yeah hard to tell from the picture but there is a missing scale, it didn't bleed or anything and it looks like there is still a layer of skin. The injury is about 5 scales below her head so it would make sense is its preventing her from eating as the area would stretch a fair bit.

She is currently eating frozen hoppers, I place the hopper in a ziplock and place it in a container of lukewarm water to thaw.

She has only missed 2 feedings so far (so just over 2 weeks). I figure a snake could likely go months without eating but I figured I should look into the problem sooner vs later.

 

[DollysMom]

Hope your snake heals quickly. She may go into shed fairly quickly. I'd expect her to eat once it has healed more. You might try smaller than normal mice-- maybe a couple of small fuzzies?

 

[DrunkJedi]

Hope your snake heals quickly. She may go into shed fairly quickly. I'd expect her to eat once it has healed more. You might try smaller than normal mice-- maybe a couple of small fuzzies?

Yeah thats a good idea. I had thought of doing that actually.

 

[jagodzinski]

I second that - going for a smaller mouse so the skin doesn't stretch as much.

 

[DrunkJedi]

i picked up a pinky (instead of the usual hoppers) and tried that. At first she had no interest but after 5 or so minutes she devoured it. I am pleased, haha.

Thanks everyone

 

[DollysMom]

I'm so happy. I was concerned.

 

[Corning]

Was it one of those tape thermometer strips? Or like a chunky one?


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[DrunkJedi]

I'm so happy. I was concerned.

Thanks

Was it one of those tape thermometer strips? Or like a chunky one?

Chunky digital one

 

[jagodzinski]

That's great! Just go slow and hopefully she will be back to eating with some healed scales in no time! After an injury like that, I would guess that the next shed will be sooner than usual, so don't be concerned if that happens.