Please Help, lawnmower injury

[adamanteus]

how is the snake doing?

Good call, Brandon. How's the Lawnmower Snake doing, Nick?

[Lori P]

And does he still have a kink in his back??

[0TG]

The Lawnmower snake is doing just fine. As for the kink, it does look like there was some nerve damage but not as bad as I had originally thought. It's tough to judge, though, as most snakes movements look very unnatural on carpeted flooring. And since it's too cold to let him outside now, I'll wait until the spring and let him crawl around on the grass to see if I think he's well enough to be let out on his own.

He ate a big juicy worm about 10 days ago so I'm set to feed him again soon. Still haven't ordered those worms, though.

[brandon0133]

i need to start ordering food for mine off the net to sense i have like 13 snakes,,lol,,and of course they eat every weekend

[Cazador]

Hey Nick,

That's really great news. For what it's worth, my daughter did a science fair exhibit last year on snake movements. She compared snake movement patterns in water, on carpet, on coarse kitty litter, and on cardboard, and she found that coarse kitty litter provided the most naturalistic movement patterns. If you were really curious about your snake's movement patterns, you could spread some in a box and watch your snake crawl around on it.

Also, it might not be a bad idea to supplement your snake's diet with reptile vitamins or 10% Pedialyte in its water dish to provide more nutrients (Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, etc.) during recovery. You also might consider a higher protein diet during recovery, but I certainly understand sticking with what's working . Cheers,

Rick

[anji1971]

You can give snakes Pedialyte???? In alternative to reptile vitamins or just when recovering from injury like Nick's? That could be an easy, cheap way to add nutrients.

[Cazador]

Sure. It doesn't offer all the amino acids that most reptile vitamins offer, but it's a healthy electrolyte solution, nonetheless. It's a great way of supplementing the diet and prevents imbalances that can occur when variety is lacking. Just dilute it to roughly 10% pedialyte : 90% water.

[anji1971]

How cool is that? Learn something new every day around here!

[0TG]

Hey Nick,

That's really great news. For what it's worth, my daughter did a science fair exhibit last year on snake movements. She compared snake movement patterns in water, on carpet, on coarse kitty litter, and on cardboard, and she found that coarse kitty litter provided the most naturalistic movement patterns. If you were really curious about your snake's movement patterns, you could spread some in a box and watch your snake crawl around on it.

Also, it might not be a bad idea to supplement your snake's diet with reptile vitamins or 10% Pedialyte in its water dish to provide more nutrients (Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium, etc.) during recovery. You also might consider a higher protein diet during recovery, but I certainly understand sticking with what's working . Cheers,

Rick

That's good stuff, man, I will try the kitty litter thing as well as the pedialyte. I'll probably go ahead and sprinkle some vitamins on the next worm I feed him.

[0TG]

Bad news, folks.

In the past week or so I noticed that he was acting very lethargic. His last meal was last week and when I went to feed him yesterday it was obvious there was something wrong as he just seemed so weak when I picked him up.

Found him dead this morning. Obviously it was something I did wrong, I should have taken my chances and let him go before it got too cold. After all that work into getting him back on his 'feet', he goes out like this.

The experience taught me a lot, though. Although I've only done it once, forcefeeding isn't so scary anymore and since I plan on keeping and breeding snakes for as long as I live, something tells me I will use the technique again in the future.

Thank you all again for your help.

RIP Chuck Norris.