She is already cleaned up, freaked out and still am after sleeping a bit. She is in a temporary smaller “quarantine tank”, I’m just worried that she had gotten it on her mouth. Would feeding her a very tiny pinky be ok and not disturb her feeding cycle too much? Or would she be too stressed to eat either way?
(Today is Monday, her feeding days are Thursday)
I assume some will ask why there are glue traps near her, it was a bunch of events. Long story short she managed to get under the dishwasher at my aunt’s while we were taking apart her terrarium stand to bring home. After a good 15 minutes of getting her out she got caught on one of the glue traps underneath the dishwasher. As soon as we (me, my mom, and my sister) got her out from under it, we immediately started running around finding things to take off the glue. Used olive oil for the majority of the remaining glue after my mom used warm water to get her off the trap, google said that it is safe for snakes you just need to soak them in lukewarm water and a bit of dawn soap to get the oil off afterwards.
Velvette (my snake) was terrified, I was terrified, but nothing looked wrong after getting her unsticky.
I’d give her a week to settle down before feeding, something like this was certainly a big traumatic event for a snake to be in I’m so sorry that happened.
Monitor her closely without physically disturbing her too much, snakes can easily injure themselves on glue traps especially the skin and scales. She may be sticky for a while so I’d keep her in the qt enclosure with just paper towels until her next shed so she doesn’t get substrate stuck all over herself.
There are so many snakes injured by traps and tape because of trying to pull them off without neutralizing the stickiness first.
Such a sad situation to find yourself in. But I agree with above. Give her some time to settle down. I assume she was well fed before this so a week fast should be nothing to her.
Keep her in that QT paper towels setup for now so there’s nothing else getting stuck to her. And keep an eye out for any wounds or sores from the trap or leftover adhesive.
Sounds like you grabbed her pretty quick after so I hope that the affect on her is minimal and she’s back to normal asap
I was planning on keeping her on paper towel for a week or two since it’s difficult to keep the constant temperature with the paper towels. I did move her back to the regular terrarium just so I could monitor her easier (her old one is currently semi- buried in my closet) but she still has the quarantine tank stuff.
She has upgraded to fuzzies now, they are big compared to her but she did eat it fine, though it took a while for her to get it down. I still have 2 smaller pinkies left over, if she’s willing do you think that’ll be a better alternative on Thursday?
We were panicking a lot and Google said vegetable oil or cooking spray, but all that we could find was the olive oil and we googled again and it said that it was ok for snakes.
I wished she hadn’t shed the day of that happening, or a few days before hand so it would have come off with the shed
(Ps. Idk how to do that message link thing properly, this app is a bit confusing for me)
Lol yeah, very glad that no one really is that scared of snakes in my house. Plus I’m pretty sure velvette would convince them that snakes are ok lol, she’s a real sweetheart normally and only is moody when it’s food time or she’s shedding soon.
Whew! Glad that you were able to recover and clean up your baby promptly. Sounds like you have her temporary housing in hand for the situation.
Please do hold off on feeding for at least a week. Your baby will have produced lots of stress hormones, cortisol and other things, as a result of being terrified and confused by what was happening. Her metabolism works muuch more slowly than ours. Like, roughly 20% the rate of ours. It takes time to metabolize those stress hormones. This is needful so her body can digest her meal properly. She’s much more likely to regurge if fed too quickly after a major stressor. When you do feed her, it’s a good idea to give a smaller meal the first time as you suggest.
The good news is that you recovered her quickly, helped her get free, and are keeping an eye on her. She should be fine before long.
I think she’s doing just fine as she’s climbing the walls of the terrarium as usual lol. I’ll probably keep her as she is right now until she at least eats a meal or two normally. Not hiding in the only decoration I have in there anymore. (She was hiding in that all day, though she is more active at night so that might be why). She poked her head out for me to take the pic lol.
I have a small container in there for now as a water dish because I’m still unpacking from staying at my aunt’s, and I just changed the paper towel from the blue shop towels to the regular ones. Still gotta clean a few things from the olive oil, like her travel bucket (with now a lid that has air holes I poked in it while I was letting her soak in some water after using the oil) and a fake vine plant i put in the bucket so she could hide in it.
While she’s getting over the stress of glue trap situation it’s good that she’s on paper towels, as others have said. Please give her some more of them. She still needs options for hiding away and feeling safe. If you put down the or for layers of paper towels, she can hide between the layers. You can also just wad a few up into a loose ball for her. She can tuck herself away in its folds.
I try to remember to swap out my snap traps (necessary in an old house in the country) for glue traps in the fall and early winter when wild snakes come into the house. I have caught and removed probably twenty snakes from glue traps – virtually all eastern milks and fox snakes, usually on the smaller side – and not one has been apparently injured (though I did once miss a trap that had gotten kicked under a shelf; they need to be checked daily or so). The oil technique is what I use (canola oil, but olive oil is no different), and I agree that not using oil would likely lead to injury.
I’ve kept a couple caught snakes. Two were requested by my local state park nature center, so I held them until I got them feeding on FT (which was oddly quick and easy). A couple that I caught in winter I kept under brumation conditions until spring when they could be released. None showed any apparent signs of stress after being removed from the trap. My evaluation of snakes in this experience is that they seem less stressed than snakes that spend the day at an expo in a deli cup.
Have been busy prepping for school, though there’s not much to update, she ate the pinkies I had left over just like normal, doesn’t seem like she is all too stressed and is just annoyed at me that she got the paper towel instead of substrate she can dig in.
Probably will wait until at least next week put the regular substrate in, but I don’t think she’s all too stressed about anything right now, she’s acting normal (other than the extra hiding, but I think that’s just because she doesn’t have many places to hide) so if she eats the fuzzy well tomorrow I don’t think there is much of an issue.
If any substrate does stick to her though, I will put her back in the quarantine setup until her next shed. But for now I don’t see any reason to keep her in the quarantine setup for much longer.
I’m so sorry that happened.
