Please Help, lawnmower injury

[drache]

I see what you mean
you know - that's a pretty major injury he sustained
even though the wound is healed on the surface, there is still some deep trauma mending going on
my guess is that the snake will be fine, but not for a while yet
his roaming the cage could mean that he's looking for food though

[adamanteus]

I can't remember if you mentioned....had he pooped yet? If not, I would be quite concerned. The way he moves looks like he has serious spinal or nervous damage. As you say, if you let him go, he's dead.

[0TG]

I see what you mean
you know - that's a pretty major injury he sustained
even though the wound is healed on the surface, there is still some deep trauma mending going on
my guess is that the snake will be fine, but not for a while yet
his roaming the cage could mean that he's looking for food though

Like I said I'll be trying the fish thing tomorrow, hopefully he'll take one of them. He's pretty much constantly moving around.

I can't remember if you mentioned....had he pooped yet? If not, I would be quite concerned. The way he moves looks like he has serious spinal or nervous damage. As you say, if you let him go, he's dead.

Looks like I'll be keeping him forever, then, as I'll not have his early death weigh on my conscious if I have anything to do with it. You can definitely see how his movements are awkward, right? I just want to make sure it's not me being paranoid.

To answer your question, yes, he has pooped several times: at least three or four (which is weird because he hasn't eaten anything). I'll see how the guppy thing goes and if he doesn't eat any of them within the next week, I guess I'll have to start asking you guys about force feeding, something I'm not looking forward to.

[0TG]

You can see in this next one that the area around his wound is visibly skinnier than the rest of his body:

[drache]

the site looks so much better
the fact that he is moving with some force makes for a good prognosis, even if there is some nerve or spinal damage
they can be amazingly tough

there is some evidence that movement can restore neural pathways
we witnessed something like this happening with Mikhaila's late hamster
he suddenly lost complete function of his hind llegs
when taken to the vet was diagnosed with a traumatic injury to the spine, resulting in paralysis
he seemed okay in other ways, so she recommended to just leave him alone and see what would happen
he ran on the wheel a lot
he really ran with his front legs mostly, dragging his body along sort of hanging out of the wheel at a diagonal
but eventually some of the functioning of one leg came back and he could drag around pretty well
eventually he could get his whole body in the wheel
I think one side recovered completely and the other somewhat

I have a snake with a nasty scar
it's old and completely healed, but there's a dent there

I think with your care this snake is healing nicely, but definitely not ready to go "out there" and probably not ready to brumate this winter
thank you for doing this

[0TG]

And thank you for sharing your experiences and for your encouragement.

My short term plan for now is to get him to eat. My long term plan is to keep him through the winter; if by the time Spring rolls around I feel he's well enough to be out on his own, I'll set him free. If not, he'll always have a home in my home.

[MoJo]

His movements are definitely not normal but if you can get him to eat and he poops normally then hopefully he will be just fine - only time will tell. I think you have done everything you could for him in the acute phase and now it remains to be seen if he will eat.

Good luck to both of you!

[0TG]

Thanks.

Just got finished putting some minnows in his water dish. I put five in there right now, hopefully by the end of the day that number will be lower.

[adamanteus]

Good news that he's pooped since his trauma, had the answer to that one been 'no' I would have recommended euthanasia. As it is I'm guessing you have a new pet for life! Good luck getting him feeding.

[0TG]

Still no luck. Frustration is starting to get the best of me as I just don't know what else I can do. The fish remain in the bowl untouched (except for one that died and one that jumped out). I tried holding one of them in his face and proceeded to try and 'tease feed' him, hoping that the continued pestering of a fish in his face would tick him off enough to bite at it. No such luck. He still seems to be curious and alert.

It's been three weeks since the event took place, and I'll assume that he had a meal within 7 days of the accident, so that means his last meal was probably about a month ago. Not horrible, but not great either. At what point would I have no other option but to force feed? I've read the article in the Wiki discussions and the following discussion that took place and I'm left with many questions:

Is this snake destined to die? Am I trying to combat mother nature's plan for a snake that has no chance at life? If he were in the wild he would no doubt have been eaten by a wild animal by now, am I just actually making the rest of his life miserable and drawing it out longer than necessary? If a snake sustains an injury such as this, does a certain bodily mechanism kick in to disregard all previous instincts to make it slowly get weaker and thereby making it easier for a bird to swoop down and put it out of it's misery? What about if I successfully forcefeed and I encounter the same problem the next time I try to get him to eat voluntarily?

Mother nature has no sympathy for the weak and that's what this snake is right now. These are all questions that are, quite frankly, driving me a bit crazy at the moment. I'd hate to have to euthanize him at this point in time, it would have been much 'easier' to do it when it happened, before I got to actually know him as a pet.