Birth defects

[mycolorfulheart]

I would probably keep + love the snake if it was mine. It is worrying though, that snakes and other reptiles don't show pain or discomfort the way mammals do. Obviously the snakes can eat, drink, bask....but is their life extremely uncomfortable? is there any way to tell?

[Lori P]

Well... my thoughts are, if the animal was suffering it would not show a normal feeding response, and it would stay secluded and lethargic. So personally, I'd tend to think that if this little guy is out feeding normally and moving around, he's not suffering; and if he was born this way, he has no clue that he's a bit odd. :-) I feel all warm and squooshy toward him, too, and would keep him as long as I felt sure he was not suffering. :-)

I have a rat terrier pup at the house with severe neurological problems; he falls over, he runs into things (like walls), he runs in the opposite way of where he intends to go and has to circle till he gets there. He goes backwards when he gets confused or too excited. His head wobbles all the time and is a bit crooked. But he's overall soooooo happy-- he's always wagging like crazy, he plays non stop, and he loooooves to snuggle and cuddle and throws himself at life with such gusto. He was brought to my vet to be euthanized, and they refused because he's not suffering; he's just different. He has no idea that anything he does is off; to him it's all in a day. I kind of equate that snake to him.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

my vet said something about stargazing, crud i forgot, something like it was contagious or something and he said should not be kept with other snakes or near a collection

i forgot his actual words though ill ask again

Just to clear things up, stargazing is genetic and is result from severe inbreeding. It's not contagious and it's something snakes are born doing. It to my knowledge has also been pretty much proven to be a recessive gene that has been brought out by obsessive inbreeding (hence why it has shown up in the most popular snakes- corns, ball pythons... etc)


Stargazers from what I understand don't do very well from the start, don't grow much and die young. Necropsies and studies on stargazers reveal NO clues and there is nothing different physically speaking between their brain and a normal snake's brain, so it is still puzzling as to what causes it. (this may have been updated since I last read up about it... so don't take my word for everything here) Stargazers act up more-so when they are excited. They stick their heads into the air and wobble a lot. My little guy is the same way all the time... he just really doesn''t have a preference as to which part of his body faces up! He also doesn't wobble and he's growing as fast as he can! I call him cute not because of what he does... just because I happen to find all baby snakes VERY cute and I find him cute in the sense that it seems he has no idea that he's not acting normal

As for mama snake, yes she was very ill when i recieved her and I am not sure how the idiot who owned her previously overlooked such a thing. All of this snakes brothers and sisters came out as slugs except for two. One died two months after birth. The surviving one doesn't do this.

on the last note... does anyone else here know what I mean when I say that snakes do express pain? They don't do it quite the same way we or other mammals do... but I could tell when my ratsnake had a mitebite that became infected that when I touched it, it hurt her. She would jerk real had and pull her skin away from me.

thanks to everyone who supports my idea of loving my weird little one

[drache]

they definitely do show when they feel pain

[anji1971]

As a snake owner, I think you can tell when your snake is in pain or suffering in some way. When Deejay's mom was ill, I just knew by looking at her that she was dying. There was just something different in the way she moved, and reacted to things. AND, she refused to eat!
I fully believe that if any snake is miserable, the owner will know it!

[Stefan-A]

I think there's a huge difference in how people (and why not animals) deal with chronic and acute pain. People with chronic pain or discomfort usually don't show it the same way, if at all.

I'm definitely convinced that pets can be in pain without showing it.

[reptileparadise]

Indeed. I believe that in nature, showing pain is equal to showing weakness. The last thing animals like to show.

Offcourse, snake owners DO see that their animals behave differently, but that could be induced by many, many factors.

[Zephyr]

Well, from experience, it's very hard to tell if a snake is dead or not from injury too. There are many disadvantages to having such as long spine and a lot of nerves to go along with it, and perhaps one is the inability to detect immediate pain.

[drache]

when I gave my king the antibiotic injections, his response to pain was obvious and unmistakable
the moment the needle pierced his skin, he'd jerk away
there was no sign whatsoever of reduced or delayed sensory processing

very often, extreme stress - the kind that activates sympathetic nervous system responses - can also act as a kind of anaesthetic

[Lori P]

Rhea, I don't think I told you before, but I really am sorry you lost you king-- you did all you could, and you tried to help. I know it's hard, but I hope you know that he was in the best hands he could have been in.