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Scale rot or injury?

Dakota314

Dakota314

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Background: I got Nina off of craigslist about 3 years ago. Her first couple of sheds were bad, but since has had decent to perfect sheds. She eats f/t every week, besides breeding season when she refuses, and last week she ate for the first time in 3 months. She is on aspen shavings, using a UTH with dimmer switch, measuring temps with a digtial thermometer with probe. Temp on warm side ranges from 82-86, temp on cool side is 72. Always has fresh water, and has been very active lately because of breeding season, but has calmed down since she ate. She was soaking in her water a lot over the past couple of weeks. I checked her and her water for mites, but she is mite free.

Today while holding her, I noticed she has some scale issues going on on her belly. It looks like it could be a minor case of scale rot from the pictures I've seen. Some of her scales have a kind of brownish dot, and on a few it looks like they are eroding for lack of better word. Here are the best pictures I could get of her, does anyone know?

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This is the worst area
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When mine got scale rot, it showed first on the leading edges of the belly scales like that. However if it *is* scale rot (and it does look like it to me), then you've caught it very early on.

To treat it in your situation, I'd discourage her from soaking by using a much smaller water dish - high humidity can encourage it and might have caused the problem. As I understand it, it's bacterial and the bacteria occur naturally in damp or humid conditions - it's an overgrowth which causes the rot. What I did was to swap to a newspaper substrate and change it every couple of days or as soon as it was soiled. Switched to disinfectable or disposable hides and disinfected/disposed of them every couple of days. Make sure you wipe the snake down with something antibacterial and snake-safe as well - I used Betadine.
 
Thanks Bitsy. The humidity is only about 30% in their room. Luckily my mom works at the newspaper, so I can get plenty of that. Would simple box hides work, so I can just throw them out every couple of days? Where can I get Betadine?

She went into blue a couple of days ago, so hopefully it will look better after, otherwise I will start treating her.

So, switch to newspaper, cardboard hides, simple set up, smaller water dish, get Betadine.
 
I'm in the UK so not sure where you'd get Betadine in the US. Here, it's an all-purpose thing used for other animals, so I'm guessing you could buy it from a vet, a reptile store or online.

If it's scale rot, then you can expect her to go into a more rapid shed cycle as she starts to heal. Hopefull it'll help the process. You might even find with patches that small, that the new skin is OK.

As for re-using the old fittings - yes, I did, as long as I was sure that they were completely disinfected and dry. I put plastic foliage in a bucket and soaked it for 24 hours then left it hanging up to dry for a week. Things like cork bark can be a nuisance as it's so full of nooks and crannies and floats! That had to be weighed down in a Betadine solution in the bath overnight.
 
Thanks guys, I'll have to look online and see who has it. My mom is bringing me some newspaper from work today, so I'll get her tank set up tonight. Hopefully it's not too rough on my girl.
 
i bought my betadine at the drugstore.

my ratsnake had a case of rot like that and I cleaned the areas with chlorhexadine (nolvasan, i got it from a vet) daily. When he shed all the bad spots came off. Such a relief!
 
Well, she just shed about an hour ago, and it was in pieces. This is the first time she hasn't had a perfect shed in a couple of months. The spots she had are looking better, but there are new spots starting, more up toward her sides. On Friday I put in newspaper, cardboard hides, and a small water bowl. I haven't gotten Betadine yet, because I don't get paid until tomorrow, so I will get some on Tuesday. Then I give her daily 30 minute soaks in a 10% solution? For how long? What if it gets worse?
 
Also, she has a line down her belly. It looks like her skin is all stretched out or something. I've never noticed it before, but is it something that happens after they eat or shed? She ate yesterday, but I took her out tonight to clean up her shed pieces and do a quick inspection.
 
Sounds like your "hospital" setup is good. With the Betadine, I didn't soak my snake. I made an old face flannel wet with the solution and let the snake slip through it. She hated that much, so I couldn't have soaked her anyway.

Could the line down her belly be in the region of her umbilicus? Sometimes they're more obvious in some than others. It might not be part of the problem, just something you haven't noticed before.
 
I'm not sure. Its kind of like an indent that runs the entire length of her body. I can take a picture in a while
 
Ok here is the line thing. I don't know if it's always been there and I just never noticed it, or if it's something new.

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And here are some scale pictures.

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She was really squirming around like usual. She just wanted to go around my neck. She is addicted to that place. When I was trying to hold her to take pics, she pooped or something on me. It was like a white gel stuff. It was smaller then a pea size, and didn't smell. What was that?
 
Depends on the type you get. Some need diluting, some don't - there should be instructions on the bottle.
 
The stuff I got didn't say it needed diluting, so I put some on a rag and let her slither through it a few times, then put her back in her viv. That's it? I'm planning to do this twice a day, as the bottle says 1-3 times daily.

Oh, and no concerns about the line thing?
 
Both my corn snake and my garter snake have that line down the belly.. I'm not sure exactly what it is but I feel like it's just a crease that forms from the constant bending of those ventral scales. When snakes are growing it seems like they have more of those types of lines too. My baby garter has several different creases on her belly like that. I think the line on my older snake is just from the constriction of his abdominal muscles when he's moving about.
 
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