drache
06-18-2010, 04:54 PM
literally . . .
in 2007 I had a bit of a mite infestation, and subsequently did end up loosing a couple of snakes to what I think were infections ultimately caused by mites and exacerbated by a weakened immune response
most other snakes were fine, except that Whizzy, one of my female parietalis ended up with three blisters from excessive soaking. these blisters dried up and left behind small hard lumps, sort of like calluses. over the years they got smaller, but a couple of months ago two of them started getting bigger again. When I took her to Sean less than a month ago to have a look, one of them had turned into an abscess which was already opening, and Sean managed to squeeze a bunch of pus out. I kept the opening clean and drained, and (I was sure) the swelling was totally gone when she went into shed a couple of days ago. I thought that this was it, she was done and shedding to finish the healing, and I left her alone yesterday. Just one day was all it took to rear it's ugly head again. today she looked just slightly swollen, but when I took her out to clean it, something hemorrhaged and there was a massive amount of blood and pus too. it looked horrible, like her insides were coming out, but I soon realized that some of it was her shed coming off. so I freaked and took her to Sean again, and he helped me clean her up and get her shed off. I think she's okay, but I'll definitely have to stay on top of this. She's a pretty hefty garter and when she is moving a lot it's not always possible for me to see much detail with my crappy eyesight. that's why I keep shlepping her to Sean.
all this because there were mites three years ago
in 2007 I had a bit of a mite infestation, and subsequently did end up loosing a couple of snakes to what I think were infections ultimately caused by mites and exacerbated by a weakened immune response
most other snakes were fine, except that Whizzy, one of my female parietalis ended up with three blisters from excessive soaking. these blisters dried up and left behind small hard lumps, sort of like calluses. over the years they got smaller, but a couple of months ago two of them started getting bigger again. When I took her to Sean less than a month ago to have a look, one of them had turned into an abscess which was already opening, and Sean managed to squeeze a bunch of pus out. I kept the opening clean and drained, and (I was sure) the swelling was totally gone when she went into shed a couple of days ago. I thought that this was it, she was done and shedding to finish the healing, and I left her alone yesterday. Just one day was all it took to rear it's ugly head again. today she looked just slightly swollen, but when I took her out to clean it, something hemorrhaged and there was a massive amount of blood and pus too. it looked horrible, like her insides were coming out, but I soon realized that some of it was her shed coming off. so I freaked and took her to Sean again, and he helped me clean her up and get her shed off. I think she's okay, but I'll definitely have to stay on top of this. She's a pretty hefty garter and when she is moving a lot it's not always possible for me to see much detail with my crappy eyesight. that's why I keep shlepping her to Sean.
all this because there were mites three years ago