Please Help, lawnmower injury

[0TG]

Hey Nick,

At this point, I'd be less worried about its lack of feeding and more about the partial shed. After a few days, the unshed portion becomes stiff and restricts the snake's movement. It time, it can even cut off the blood supply and usually causes the snake to lose a portion of its tail. I know you're going away, so you could try to soak the snake in lukewarm water (~80-90F) for about 30 seconds. Then you can try to gently pinch/peal the dead skin toward the tail. Peel it slowly, and you'll see that the snake attempts to crawl out of it as you help it along.

Another popular and successful technique is to put the snake in a "wet bag." You just dampen a cloth bag, put the snake in it, close the top of the bag, and put the bag in the snake's enclosure (to keep it at a comfortable temperature). The moisture and abrasion helps to remove the snake's skin overnight. I realize this may not be a viable option if you won't be home for a few days.

Put a fresh dose of Neosporin on the wound first, though. Also, dont' get too worried if the snake hasn't eaten for a month or so, even though it's probably last year's young. They're well-adapted for lack of food. Just make sure its ribs aren't protruding, and its skin isn't wrinkled (like Kitkat described).

Rick

I appreciate your advice. Actually I think I got a good 95% of his unshed skin off. I've had a few corns in my day that were pesky shedders so I'm familiar with the lukewarm bath idea. There remain a few unshed patches around the wound that I don't really want to mess with at this time but I did manage to successfully rid the old skin off from about four inches from his tail down to the tip.

[KITKAT]

I appreciate your advice. Actually I think I got a good 95% of his unshed skin off. I've had a few corns in my day that were pesky shedders so I'm familiar with the lukewarm bath idea. There remain a few unshed patches around the wound that I don't really want to mess with at this time but I did manage to successfully rid the old skin off from about four inches from his tail down to the tip.

That sounds adequate, if you are still using the neosporin. The ointment will keep the unshed patches soft, and eventually he may rub them off.

[Cazador]

Nice job, Nick. It sounds like your snake is well on the road to recovery.

Rick

[0TG]

Weird. I put a couple of worms in there today with him and he looked very interested, went up to one of them and smelled it, looked like he was about to strike but then instantaneously lost interest and went and burrowed underneath the newspaper. Very odd. But I'm glad he's showing an interest in food.

Also, on Friday I threw a worm in there and on Saturday when I looked, I saw the remains of a worm in the tank. I don't know if he ate him and then regurged or what. I also don't know how long it takes to digest a worm but I'm guessing it wasn't feces.

Another concern I'm having is his body is somewhat thinner where the wound is. He also looked a bit awkward when I put him on my carpet to let him crawl around. I don't know if he looked awkward because he couldn't get a good grip on the rug or what. I don't know if it's possible to be partly paraylized at that part of his body? To test I put my finger next to his tail while holding the front part of his body up. He wrapped his tail around my finger and held himself up with his tail, so that back part of his body is not. Do you think it's possible for the middle part to be? I'll probably let him try to roam around in the grass tomorrow, perhaps even take a video to see if you guys see anything abnormal about his slithering.

[ScimitarX]

Hes probably still sore and uncomfortable around the wound, it probably stings when he moves, hopefully you'll see him move better as his wound continues to heal.

[drache]

it may just be a bit of stiffness
0r he may have sustained some local nerve damage

[MoJo]

I would suspect some local nerve injury. Wounds like that can easily be associated with nerve damage. There is also the possibility that he had muscular damage and the way it is healing and scarring is causing the abnormal movements. Both could potentially resolve. Of course it is possible the carpet was hard to crawl on!

I do not believe that snakes express or show pain in a way we humans can see or appreciate. We had a lovely checkered boy that had a hide fall on him accidentally. Unfortunately it was a heavy hide and it was clear that he had his spine severely injured and was paralyzed below where the injury was. You would never have known he was in pain or that something catastrophic had happened to him! He even did well for a short time eating and defectaing. He had trouble shedding only. We finally put him down when it became clear by the smell from his enclosure that he had developed an infection that worked it's way out from the inside of his body. When my husband brought him to the vet to put him down he was still flicking his tongue. There was no way he could have survived this and yet you could not tell that he was sick.

Good luck to our guy. You have done a wonderful thing trying to help him heal and recover.

[0TG]

Thank you MoJo.

Update:

The wound is completely closed up/dry and I actually just switched the paper towels over to dirt and a nice fern; I think the risk of infection is gone at this point in time.

As I type this I can see him struggling a bit as he's managed to get the last half of his body wrapped around a a bunch of twigs that I just put in there and he wants to go forward but can't seem to manage to unravel himself from the twigs, which is very annoying because it makes me want to go back to the original set up I had.

Again, I don't know if this is nerve damage or if the part of the body with the wound on it is just really sore and he's favoring it. If it's nerve damage and is destined to be an awkward "slitherer" for the rest of his life, then he's probably as good as dead if I ever let him go.

I took a video of him crawling around to see if anyone else notices anything slightly off that I'll upload later in the day.

He still hasn't eaten, at least I think he hasn't. Like I said last weekend I put a worm in with him and he either ate it and regurged or he pooped it out within a day. I plan on getting a bigger water bowl and putting some guppies in there over the weekend as well as switching back to my original set up. He's crawling around a lot in his new set up but it just seems to be a ton of work.

I don't know what to do with him. :?

[0TG]

I should also mention that he seems much more active within the last week, almost like he's looking for something although I can't imagine what. It's still too early for him to be looking for a nest to brumate for the winter, right? He's pretty much always on the move now it seems.

[0TG]

Here is the video: you can see at one point where he is in the dirt trying to go up hill that the front part of his body is doing all the work, while the last part (starting right around the wound) is sort of just being dragged.

YouTube - garter