babies susceptable to chemicals

[Scott E.]

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but it seems that babies are susceptable to trace cleaning chemicals. When the babies were born, my son grabbed a mop bucket to transfer them from Mom's enclosure to the babies enclosure. He had rinsed it out before transfering them, but it had been used for cleaning before then.
We were getting them out to feed them and used that bucket again to hold them while we fed them one at a time in another enclosure. One baby started convulsing and twitching within a couple of minutes of being in the bucket. We took it out and put it in the feeding tub. Not long after that a couple of more babies started doing the same thing. We quickly figured out the bucket might be the cause, so we transfered them to another container. I have the ones that were convulsing isolated from the others to see if they will recover. At least one started acting better after being put into the feeding container for a while. The first one must have been more sensitive to whatever was in the bucket as he had the most adverse reaction. I will keep you posted on their progress.

I guess this is a reminder to be carefull about the cleaning chemicals you use for cleaning their cages and accessories. I didn't think anything of using the bucket before this happend.

Scott E.

[Spankenstyne]

Gah, hopefully they pull through fine. Good warning to heed.
Have you been able to possibly narrow down what chemical(s) may have brought this on?

[guidofatherof5]

Good point to bring up.
Being so small they would probably be at risk to many chemical we might consider safe.
Your little ones are in our prayers.

[Scott E.]

Update:
there were three babies that were acting funny at the beginning. It seems that two are acting normally now and only one is still occasionally having convulsions. He kinda straightens out and rolls over on his back with his mouth wide open. He also seems to try to strike a everything, even his own tail.
As for the chemicals, I have no idea. The bucket was a general cleaning bucket. The chemical angle is the only thing that makes sense. We had not seen this behavior in any of the babies before bringing them out to feed. One seemed to exhibit this action very soon after putting it in the bucket. I would bet that this little guy is more sensitive to the chemicals than the others and is probably the guy still showing symptoms.

Scott E.

[kibakiba]

Poor little one. It's really sad when stuff like that happens. Do you think the chemicals might have damaged his brain to the point he thinks everything is an enemy? I've seen a skunk with a mental disease and it attacked itself and anything that went near it. I really hope the little one is okay. He'll definitely be in my thoughts.

[guidofatherof5]

Hang in there. They are tough as nails and can recovery from many things.
Good thoughts and prayers coming your way.;)

[Mommy2many]

Probably best to have a bucket used only for snakes. That's what I do.

[Scott E.]

Update:
The one baby is still acting strange and not eating. All of the others are eating and growing like weeds. The strange acting one acts like it wants to eat, but can't seem to get all of its ducks in a row. It will get a worm in its mouth and just sit there, then finally spit it back out. We will keep trying to get it to eat.

[guidofatherof5]

Good news. Thanks for updating the post.

[radtad]

I have one doing that but I thought it might be from when we were out of town it was fed some fat head minnows. I will check to see if the cage was cleaned with anything or what it was put into for feeding. My guy is still alive and it has been 2 weeks. Vet could not find any reason for this fellow to act this way. Good luck to you and your little one

[The Snake Whisperer]

Personally I've found that a mixture of vinegar and water works as well or better than most commercial cleaning products and is safe to use around the snakes and birds and my other animals. Its also much cheaper!

[Scott E.]

I may be full of beans on the whole chemical thing. I didn't see how the little guy was acting before the whole bucket incedent. I just thougt that since we saw two or three of them acting flaky after the bucket, that it might be connected. I don't know if it was chemicals or if he was born like this. I would be interested if anyone else has had a baby like this.

[ConcinusMan]

Update:
The one baby is still acting strange and not eating. All of the others are eating and growing like weeds. The strange acting one acts like it wants to eat, but can't seem to get all of its ducks in a row. It will get a worm in its mouth and just sit there, then finally spit it back out. We will keep trying to get it to eat.


That happens much of the time anyway, with any litters, there is almost always a few. I wouldn't necessarily attribute this to the suspected chemical exposure.

I have seen baby snakes act the way you described just by a sudden change in temperature or light intensity so it could also be that there was no real chemical exposure. There are other reasons that baby snakes would behave the way you described.

Once upon a time, I was giving some very young concinnus a cool down. they were born in early august and I was going hard on them in January because I had planned to release them and nature isn't going to go easy on them so I figured cooling them down to 42 degrees would "weed out" the weaklings. Thing is, I think I warmed them up too fast and they all started twitching like you described. Most of them made it to a year old before being released, and yes, a few died during the cool down or during the warm up. I've also seen them act like that when going from dim to very bright light too suddenly.