Vitamin deficiency in snakes/ scale rot.

[Weda737]

I'm really just wondering if any of you have dealt with anything like that. My dumerils boa had been having a small issue with scale rot over winter. Backstory most of you probably already know, but I've had him for a year now and he arrived with a respiratory infection and slightly dehydrated, he gained weight after I got him just from water alone. Well he voluntarily stops eating through the winter, last year his diet consisted only of frozen thawed rats, one large rat about once a week. I should mention he had some healed spots of old scale rot when I got him. None much bigger than a sesame seed, so I didn't feel it warranted a vet visit. I'm always fussing with his substrate and keep it super clean.

I looked up everything I could find about scale rot and treated his little spots with betadine. It didn't do much. I read about it being caused by a vitamin deficiency and that just has to be what caused it. I got him a live rat and prekilled it for him since he recently started telling me he's hungry lol. Well now his spots are healing up great. So now I'm a little hesitant about putting him back on frozen. Would a reptile vitamin help? How much do the vitamins degrade in frozen rats? Anyone know if they absorb well enough to do any good? I know some people keep their snakes on frozen only and never had a problem. Any thoughts at all would be great. He's the only snake I've ever kept on frozen this long, My corns mostly get fresh prekilled so I don't have anything else to go by. Thanks for taking time to read my scattered thoughts.

 

[bitsy]

Scale rot is a bacterial infection rather than a symptom of vitamin deficiency. The trick is not only to treat the snake, but to reduce the tank to a minimal hospital setup with newspaper substrate and disinfect/dispose of everything in it every few days, over several weeks as the snake recovers. You'd need to remove all the nooks and crannies where bacteria might find a foothold and reinfect the snake. With anything like aspen or bark substrate, there's really no way to keep it that clean - it provides the ideal conditions for bacteria to multiply.

Certainly I think a snake which is under the weather will be more susceptible to bugs which it would normally fight off. I can't think that a vitamin supplement would harm if given in the right dose, but scale rot certainly isn't primarily caused by a vitamin deficiency. However anything you can do to boost your snake's general health, will give it the best chance at recovery. You could maybe alternate with a calcium+vitamin D supplement - mine always seem to react better to that than they do to a wide-spectrum vitamin supplement. Be careful to not overdose though.

As far as I'm aware, the nutritional difference between frozen and fresh prekilled mice is negligible. Mine have only ever been given frozen and I'm happy with their general condition. I think if there was a significant discrepancy between the two, we as a Corn-keeping community would have picked up on it by now and be publicising it.

Good luck with yours. I remember that it was months of worry with mine when she got it. She was really miserable and went totally off her food.

 

[Nanci]

I don't think the loss of nutritional value when freezing would be significant to cause any health issues. You _do_ run a much greater risk of parasites.

I fed hatchlings vitamin-coated mice for one season and didn't notice any difference in growth from previous seasons. It was _very_ messy!

I also don't think supplementing with vitamins in a reasonable amount will cause any harm to your snake.

 

[MegF.]

I used a vitamin/calcium powder at one time on my frozen rats and when my FWC went in for surgery we did blood work and it came back high in calcium so I've not supplemented at all since then. My vet does like the injectible vit. C and I was injecting a few ml into my f/t rats before feeding for a while. I'd also suggest a full spectrum light that includes both levels of UV. While UV isn't necessary for snakes in general, UV does kill bacteria and is routinely used in labs and hospitals to help do just that. I have full spectrum plant lights in my cages for even the arboreals. Whether it benefits or not I don't know but I figure it won't hurt. The amount of UV from a plant light is fairly low key.

 

[MegF.]

I might add that fresh killed poses more of a risk of transmission of bacteria and internal parasites to your snakes. Freezing (at least deep freezers like I use to store my rats and mice) kill most forms of bacteria and parasites commonly found in breeder rats and mice.