I’m a first time snake owner, and I recently took my ball python toast out of his temporary enclosure and I saw this and I’m really concerned that it’s scale rot, or if he’s getting burned by his heating pad any help is appreciated
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Is his heat pad on the inside of his tank by chance?
Edit to add: if so these are more than likely burns from it…
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How long have you had Toast? And do you know how old he is?
Can you tell us what he’s been eating and what the temps are in the enclosure?
At a glance, this looks like scarring and not an active infection or wound. This can be caused from a lot of reasons.
The most common would probably be bad sheds, bite wounds from a rodent or a wound from rough objects in his enclosure.
As far as burns… They’re most often on the stomach with a pad. You definitely want a thermostat on those to regulate. Burns on the back can be from improper overhead light or a badly packaged shipping heat pack.
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Would you be able to post a picture of the enclosure? Also is Toast getting ready to shed, or are they normally that pale?
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It’s a heating pad that’s on the outside bottom of his enclosure
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Ok that’s good! I figured it was but it didn’t hurt to ask. You are getting some good feedback. I hope you will find some answers……
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He’s on frozen thawed
I think he’s about 9 or 10
he just shed about like 3 and a half weeks ago so I think it makes sense for it to be a bad shed…
But just in case I took some of his decoration out for the time being just to be super safe and monitored him more.
Do you have any more suggestions on what I should do?
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Can you tell us the temps and humidity in the enclosure just to make sure everything there is good? And the type of bedding.
I would maybe give him a bit of a lukewarm soak and just make sure that area is clean. If there’s discoloration from bedding that could be making it look a bit worse than it is.
If you have betadine/iodine in house you can also let him soak in the water for a few minutes before adding some drops in. That way he can get a clean drink before the medication is in the water. Just enough drops to make it like a weak, pale color tea.
Keep the enclosure clean. Don’t let things get too wet cause that can lead to mold or bacteria growth. Sometimes to keep humidity up keepers flood the enclosure with a little too much water.
If it does seem to be getting worse or any other symptoms happen I would recommend at the very least taking him off bedding entirely and just on paper towel or newspaper for monitoring. You may need to begin considering a vet at that point as well.
Sometimes our guys can get a small infection that goes unnoticed and becomes worse. Sepsis is when it gets into the blood stream and sometimes the first signs aren’t a respiratory infection. It can be things like sores on the body. That would be what I would ask the vet about if he does start to get any swelling or fluid drainage in the area.
Double check the decor to make sure he isn’t squeezing into or against anything to sharp or rough as well before putting anything in.
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You’re getting good feedback. For what it’s worth, just thought I’d add that this is unlikely to be scale rot. Scale for usually shows up on their belly or low lateral scales. Hopefully Toast will soon be healed. Be aware that it can take snakes a while to heal since their metabolism is slower than ours.
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It’s a scrape, I don’t fully know how he got it but it’s heading pretty well, he’s on paper towels atm! I’m monitoring him as much as I can!
He was about to go into shead before I took that photo and now he’s fully done.
I did some research and I starting doing the iodine baths like you recommended and then should I put some neosporin over after the bath? I saw some people recommend it for stuff like what he has
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My reptile recommends pure vitamin E oil for issues like these.
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Unless there’s an actual wound I wouldn’t use Neosporin. It can actually cause some damage to the scales if you leave too much on.
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