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Lump On Tail

Is there any chance, slight chance///
that when the snake was first acquired
and removed from it's coiled up position in it's first-seen-by-the-buyer container,
that the snake was coiled up the way snakes coil up
so the tail was under the snake
or pressed up against the side of the snake?

Usually people pay more attention to the head end then the butt end when picking up a new pet snake. I've brought home a couple in my early days that "suddenly had their tail tips die" within a week.
Although they were more likely like that in the first place.

How many other corn snakes has your vet cut on? I'm guessing this will be a pet and never safely bred again now.
 
i took her out when i got her and seen it right away the guy told me it was a birth defect. it just really seemed to get bigger as the night went on, and that made me think is it really a birth defect. Thats when i decided that she needed to go get checked. if you look at the last pic you can see where is starts and ends and i don't remember it being even close to that big it was just an inch or two up from her vent and now it goes about 4 inches give or take. I don't know what it is if it is fat i am def cool with it i just wanna make sure there is nothing wrong with her she is a very calm and friendly snake.
 
An no i'm not planning on breeding her the first intent was to until i seen her tail then i just wanted her. i have another female that i would like to breed but that isn't going to be for a few years.
 
If it's still getting bigger, I really would try to find another vet pretty promptly.

Whatever the cause, if it's growing that fast and continuing to grow, it'll be putting strain on her heart and potentially other internal organs.
 
Is the lump hard, or really squishy? It looks like it could be egg-binding already, especially if it's getting bigger. I'll get you a pic of my girl when she was egg-bound
 
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Well I just talked to my girl at home and she said it looks like the one side has gone down a little is there any chance it could be something from stress because of change.
 
If it's stress related, then it's not something I've ever come across in 20+ years of Corn ownership or 10 years of internet use. They sometimes puff their necks out when scared or shedding, but they can't inflate other bits of their body. There's always room to learn something new, but in your place I'd be seeking a professional opinion.

However if it *is* deflating, that can only be a good thing.
 
You would think! But I guess we are talking about a vet that lanced open a lump instead of sticking it with a needle and aspirating some of the fluid to get an idea of what it was. If they would have done that they would have known with out cutting the snake open if it was fat or not.

To the OP It might still just be a fatty deposit but with the incision it did get some swelling and that is why you are seeing it get a little smaller now.
 
Yeah, that was my worry, why not just aspirate? Why cut the snake open and risk infection?

I just feel if the vet cut open the snake they probably don't know that much at all about reptiles and might not even know what egg-binding is!

Though, on second look the OPs snake definitely doesn't look egg-bound, as the lump sort of spills sideways instead of being rounded out like my snake when she was bound.

For the record, my snake had 3 slugs (one of which looked like 2 slugs fused together) and a partial slug stuck inside her, which is why her lump was so long.

OP has your snake seen a different vet, or are you just keeping an eye out for any new developments?
 
i am planning on giving it the weekend and if it doesn't get any better i was really thinking about taking her to an experienced vet with snakes. and they did get her with a needle first and no fluid was coming out until he started putting pressure on it and a little bit of clear fluid mixed with blood came out. that is when he decided that they were going to try and drain it. so we sat in the waiting room for about a half hr just to have them come out and tell us there was no fluid and they thought it was just fat. i called an experienced vet today that said they could get her in on monday so all i can say is i hope it gets better over the weekend. the really weird thing is though she has alot of energy and is very alert. What are slugs i seen that before where can i go to learn some more about them.
 
Slugs are unfertilized eggs. If you just look through the breeding section you can see people's clutches and most will have at least 1 slug so you can see what they look like compared to an egg. What she bred before that you know of? Was she housed with another snake?
 
If it was egg-binding, wouldn't the vet have noticed that?
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Gosh you'd hope so, but not necessarily in my experience.

The very first time I needed a vet for a Corn (to check what turned out to be fat lumps, strangely), he was insistent that she wasn't gravid. I told him I could count at least 20 eggs in her but he curtly told me that nothing had showed up in the x-rays, so she absolutely wasn't - he acted like I was a complete idiot.

The next day, she laid a clutch of 23 eggs.

I'd gone to that surgery because they said they'd been looking after snakes for years - this was in the mid-90s when pet snakes were much less common here. I obviously should have asked for their survival rates.

we were told she has successfully laid eggs in the past. she had her own cage, so we were told.
Click to expand...
It's unusual, but they can store sperm in their bodies from one breeding season to the next. From what I've seen in mine, once they lay eggs, some tend to continue - even when not mated. It does sound like she could be eggbound, although the fact that the lump appears to be going down wouldn't be characteristic of that.

Good luck with the vet visit on Monday. Let us know how you get on. Fingers crossed for both of you.
 
well so far it does seem to be going down may have been cause of them cutting into her on why it was getting bigger she just shed today and she is very active. so far so good hope it keeps getting smaller
 
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