• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

snake acting like its dying

skimpy

skimpy

New member
Hi all,

Got my corn aged 4mths in july. went to rescue centre i got it from to get his food...came home with another! I wasn't keen on putting them together, since Milton had only just settled, however, i was told that it would be ok to put them together, since they were roughly the same age etc.

Now i have a problem. as soon as it occured, they were separated, but i think the problem has gone too far.

The smaller one, my first, Milton, has gone listless. he just looks like he's dying. he is off his food, and i thought he was going to shed (the eyes are a little cloudy), however, if he did shed, i dont think he would have the energy to discard the old skin. I found him this morning exactly where i left him, he had made no attempt to find his hide. i took him out this morning to check he wasnt dead. took a while to find out he was still breathing. I had him curled up on the palm of myh hand. there is no movement, his head will move if you touch it, and his tail sometimes quivers a bit, but other than that, he is lifeless.

getting worried. could this be stress? what can i do to de-stress? is there anything else it could be?

on a final note, i did notice that Milton was drinking A LOT, up until yesterday. Viv nive and humid, not too hot.

Some help on what is wrong and what to do would be much appreciated.

Skimps :cry:
 
Is it too hot? Whats the temp at substrate level on the hot side? Is there a UTH or heat lamp or both?
 
What are the temps like? From my experiences, sometimes a snake can become listless if they get too cold.

Also what do you mean by "nice and humid?" Too much humidity can be bad for corns.
 
I do not have a thermometer in there, but I am using a heat mat, on 1/3 of the viv. There is a hygrometer, which reads 65. sorry i cant give you more precise info. i need to get a thermometer, however i didnt think it would get too hot using a mat. i dont use lamps.
 
A LOT of fluid, clear stuff, just came out. do snakes pee? or is this part of the dying process?
 
i think he died when the fluid came out. can stress kill??? I now need to know what killed him, since i have another, and they were in together
 
A mat WILL get too hot if not controlled by a thermostsat... I did a little test not long ago on a mat plugged into the mains and measured the temps at certain intervals.

After only an hour it was up at 110 degrees!! Thats a fried corn snake!!!
 
o god i hope not. i had been switching the mat on in the evening, it wasnt on constantly. after last message, i noticed he was still breathing, i think he has stopped now.
 
Yea that's probably what happened, heat mats unregulated get WAY too hot. Did you do any research at all? you have to have a thermometer with a probe.

There are posts here almost daily from new corn owners with either the wrong kind of thermometer or no thermometer at all. I'm beginning to see how the more veteran snake owners here get frustrated answering the same questions day in and day out when all the info is easily found in the FAQs and stickied posts on this forum and other places.
 
Come on... their snake just died...skimpy, I am very sorry for your loss.

Flagg, I realise it is so frustrating when an animal dies because the owner's husbandry was poor, but skimpy's intentions were good. She seperated them the moment she realised there was a problem, and we know from her posts that her snake had heating, water, hides, etc, even a hygrometer. The truth is that new snake owners who are not sure, often choose the wrong advice when they hear conflicting things. It's easy when you know how, but I know when I was researching corns, I saw and heard many contradicting things, and if you don't KNOW which is correct, how are you to know who is correct? :shrugs: If two people say two different things... one of them has to be wrong... and it can be easier to believe someone face to face than annoymies on an internet forum. Maybe someone told skimpy a thermometer was not neccessary (you know, the "But I don't use them with my snakes and they're fine.")

It doesn't excuse the snake's death, but I think skimpy should just be allowed to learn from her mistakes. We all make mistakes, and while some of them bring more tragic consequences than others, that's how we learn. The experienced people on this forum are only experienced because they've had the ups and downs of keeping live creatures.

Oh, and let's not jump to conclusions - we don't know for a fact that the heat mat killed Milton. I myself successfully maintained Connor on an unregulated heat mat for some time. No, it wasn't a good idea, but the point is that I managed to do it and Connor is in perfect health. There's a good possibility that the snake was just poorly :shrugs:
 
i had been switching the mat on in the evening, it wasnt on constantly
Click to expand...

In that case, I'm afraid the temperature fluctuations were probably quite extreme for a Corn Snake. While we can't be sure what happened, this would be one source of stress.

Introducing another snake could also have caused stress.

It's also possible that the second snake is carrying some sort of disease that has been passed on.

If you have a local reptile vet, please see if you can have a post mortem done, to try and pinpoint what has happened and keep your other snake safe.

And yes, I believe that all dying animals void their digestive systems as they pass on. It's down to the loss of involuntary muscle control.

Sorry for your loss. There are some good FAQs here that will help you give your remaining snake the optimum setup, so please have a look around and a good read.
 
Well I apologize if my post was insensitive, I thought it was rather reasonably stated. I'm going to stop replying to this kind of thread, its just the same thing over and over again. There's no reason new snake owners should HAVE to learn from their mistakes. This isn't directed at anyone specifically, just this kind of post in general, of which there are far too many lately.
 
But we do learn, and will continue to do so. You had to learn how to care for corns, just like everyone else. You and I have both made mistakes and will continue to do so, because if we were perfect we wouldn't be people.

It's sad I know, but you can research all you like and not neccessarily come up with the right answers. There will be always be conflicting advice... most of us here agree that co-habbing is bad, but there's always a few who say it can be done. Sometimes you just don't know who to believe.
 
Flagg!!

FYI i am just back from a vet who owns snakes himself, and he doesn't think it was the heat mat. I take your points on board regarding regulating the temp. it was next on my list of things to do come pay day...buy a thermometer. i have done my research ty. I dnt take kindly to you being so scathing. no one asked you to reply, so you didnt have to waste your time.

I had a snake, dying, with no transport to get him to the vet. i thought i would seek advice from knowledgable people. i used the search function before posting.

Snake died from possible obstruction, or gall bladder problem. hard to confirm without a post mortem, which i was too late for, as the place closed.

i will not use this forum again, since at least one of you is way to short with peopl. armed with next to no facts, you assumed that it was one thing, when in fact it was another. Yeah, im new to this game, but im not stupid.
 
skimpy said:
i will not use this forum again, since at least one of you is way to short with peopl. armed with next to no facts, you assumed that it was one thing, when in fact it was another. Yeah, im new to this game, but im not stupid.
Click to expand...
Sorry about your snake. But this seems like a strange and immature reaction. Is every human with whom you interact wonderful and adequately sensitive? If not, are you making arrangements to become a hermit? :rolleyes:
 
bitsy said:
In that case, I'm afraid the temperature fluctuations were probably quite extreme for a Corn Snake. While we can't be sure what happened, this would be one source of stress.

Introducing another snake could also have caused stress.

It's also possible that the second snake is carrying some sort of disease that has been passed on.

Thanks. I am worried that big AL, the remaining corn, may be carrying something nasty. his behaviour is normal, feeding ok etc. perhaps he carrying something that Milton couldnt handle? more likely cause was stress. Milton didnt like the new addition. despite others thinking im foolish, im not. i had BIG reservations about putting the two together, and that is without reading up on that bit. now i know.

I also didnt know about temperature fluctuations, so now i do, i will purchase more suitable heating, since the heatmat is not reliable.


Thanks again, you have given me some good points to consider. now i gotta go and bury the poor wee bugger.
Click to expand...
 
Roy Munson said:
Sorry about your snake. But this seems like a strange and immature reaction. Is every human with whom you interact wonderful and adequately sensitive? If not, are you making arrangements to become a hermit? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

point taken. i am understandably sensitive right now, having lost Milton, and this is compounded by toothache after 4 wisdom extractions the other day. when i posted that, i did not see the other comments. not everyone here is an arse!
 
skimpy said:
point taken. i am understandably sensitive right now, having lost Milton, and this is compounded by toothache after 4 wisdom extractions the other day. when i posted that, i did not see the other comments. not everyone here is an arse!
Click to expand...

Perfectly understandable, imo...we all know that animals come and go but it doesn't hurt any less.The little guys always touch our hearts don't they?

I hope you can allow this to not knock your confidence as a snake keeper. It doesn't sound to me like you did anything wrong. Sorry for your sad loss.
 
Sorry to hear about your corn.. never easy to lose a pet.

skimpy said:
I also didnt know about temperature fluctuations, so now i do, i will purchase more suitable heating, since the heatmat is not reliable.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that a UTH is reliable-- I believe Bitsy was referring to turning it off and on. UTH's are left on all day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top