# Ball Pythons > BP Husbandry > Advanced BP Husbandry >  Red Belly Scales...help!

## BaierBalls

Was cleaning out his cage today and found this...his belly scales are this almost "burnt orange" color from his midsection to his vent. It is just his belly scales. It must have come up quickly as I handle him fairly often and had not noticed it before. What in the world is this? Septicemia...? Vet appt. day after tomorrow. Anyone seen this before or know what it might be??  :Surprised:  :Confused:  :Surprised:  :Confused:

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midtx350z (03-19-2010)

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## dr del

Hi,

Can you get us some close up clear pics of the scales?

What kind of substrate are you using and what kind of heat - if it is a UTH is it on a thermostat?

It looks as though it could be scale rot but it is covering an awful lot of area to spring up quickly.

The vet is definately the good idea with anything that widespread and I hope it is something easily treated.  :Please: 

I think the best plan until the vet appointment would be changing the substrate to paper towels and keeping everything as clean as you can.

Anyone with better eyesight get more definate info from the photo?


dr del

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midtx350z (03-19-2010)

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## bsash

Looks like scale rot to me, switch to paper towels for substrate.

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midtx350z (03-19-2010)

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## BaierBalls

He is on aspen shavings...most of my snakes are in a rack with a thrmostat...but he has been in a glass aquarium for the past couple months with a small Zoo-Med UTH without a thrmostat. Are you thinking a burn?

I will try posting some closer picture. Uploading pictures to this site only works 50% of the time for me and I don't know why. They are all the exact same format but half of the time after I upload it will say "format not supported," or something to that nature. I will give it a shot later.

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midtx350z (03-19-2010)

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## Repsrul

> but he has been in a glass aquarium for the past couple months with a small zoo-med uth *without a thrmostat.* are you thinking a burn?


ding ding ding!!!!!!!!!!

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midtx350z (03-19-2010)

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## bsash

If you have a glass aquarium without a thermostat, then yes, it most likely is a burn.

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midtx350z (03-19-2010)

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## dr del

Hi,




> He is on aspen shavings...most of my snakes are in a rack with a thrmostat...but he has been in a glass aquarium for the past couple months with a small Zoo-Med UTH without a thrmostat. Are you thinking a burn?
> 
> I will try posting some closer picture. Uploading pictures to this site only works 50% of the time for me and I don't know why. They are all the exact same format but half of the time after I upload it will say "format not supported," or something to that nature. I will give it a shot later.


Are the aspen shavings damp or wet?

And, sadly, yes I am thinking burn just from the speed of appearance alone. For scale rot to get to that extent it would almost certainly take some time. When was the last time you had examined him before you noticed it?

If you keep getting gallery problems take a note of the error message and let one of us know and we will see if we can work out what the problem is.


dr del

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## Vypyrz

I think it may be a burn. I had one of those small Zoo-Meds without a t-stat on my first glass tank set-up. As soon as I learned about needing a controller for it I went in and moved the aspen away and shot it with a temp gun and it was reading 106F. Fortunately, my snake hadn't burrowed down to the glass yet and I was able to get a dimmer in time. Good luck with the recovery...

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severe_bomber (03-19-2010)

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## midtx350z

Certainly looks like a burn... Let us know what the vet says.

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## Mrgbb

looks like a burn to me i think scale rot is more of a red color but just to be safe put him on paper towels for a little bit and see what happens....

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## BuckeyeBalls

You notice its only on the middle to lower half of the body? Would this be from when they make a "ball"

I only have 1 bp but when ours is in the hide only the middle to lower half of the body touches the uth because normally the upper half is in a ball on top of the rest if the body

If that makes any sense  :Rolleyes2:

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## mr. s

Yes, that looks like a burn. I have found that scale rot usually covers the belly scales in a uniform fashion as opposed to very intensely in only a few spots.
Best of luck. Tell us how it goes.
If a snake was being burned, why would it not get off the heat exactly? I have always wondered.......maybe it only has a single hide?

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## BaierBalls

So here's what's progressed so far. My girlfriend works at a vet office (which does NOT see exotics), but one of the Vets there used to work with exotics, and is a relief vet on the weekends for one of our local exotic vets. I was steered away from taking him to the vet I had an appt. with, due to the recommendation of my girlfriends co-worker (who is a relief vet there). But he agreed to look at the snake and just give his opinion on it before I rescheduled with another exotics vet (that he highly recommended). So my girlfriend took him to work with her and when her co-worker (the former exotics vet, now strictly dogs and cats) saw him his first idea was a burn.

However, he (and I don't know the details of this yet as I haven't gotten to talk to her in detail about it yet, this just happened today), decided to extract something from underneath his belly scales with a syringe, and extracted a "yellowey, puss looking liquid" (as my girlfriend described it to me briefly over the phone). He then said he did NOT believe it was a burn, but a bacterial infection and to make another apptmnt. with a diff. exotic vet that could write me a prescription for snakes. 

So I now have an appt. on Monday morning for him to be seen. 

Here are the only other pictures I took before I let her take him.

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## BaierBalls

He was on Aspen shavings that were dry...I can only think that he pushed the shavings aside over the heat mat and was sitting directly on the glass over the heat. If this vet's opinion is wrong and it IS a burn, that is how it happened. Feel like a dumb*** now....I work at a pet store and all our snakes have heat mats without thermostats and I have never seen anything like this in 4 years of being there...and before I got my rack system and thermostat I had my snakes in tanks with heat mats and never saw a burn. Live and learn right.

On the other hand...if it is a bacterial infection...I don't know how he would have got it...I read it comes from a too damp and too dirty environment...but his shavings were not damp and poop is cleaned immediately after it is made. 

Guess we'll see what they say Monday. 

Pretty angry at myself if it is a burn  :Mad: ...wont be keeping any other snakes this way.

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## A.VinczeBPs

As the saying goes, _stuff_ happens. As long as you take the initiative to fix what caused the problem, and are helping the ball by taking it to the vet.
Still looks like a bad burn to me, that maybe got infected as well.

Hope the vet you see can help. Good luck.

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## mpkeelee

as long as u r fixing the snakes living situation and getting the snake treatment then dont be mad. as th OP said, stuff happens. kinda sux u had to learn the hard way tho. good luck, let us know what the verdict is

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## BaierBalls

Visited the Vet. earlier today. Everyone who guessed BURN was correct. So here's doctors orders:

1. Keep on clean paper towels.

2. Soak snake in a Providone-Iodine/water mixture for 30 minutes at a time, two times a day.

3. After soak, cover burned area with Silvadene Cream.

4. Amikacin injection once every three days as a preventative to infection.

Doc says it is a bad burn, but he's seen much worse. Says these burns are more common with ball pythons than any other snake. They seem less likely to move away from a hot area then other species of snake. I wonder why this is?

Anyways, lesson learned, and wont make the same mistake again! Wish us luck on a speedy recovery!

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## bsash

Well, I guess I'm late for the verdict. Any how, I was going to say that burns usually do puss to help the skin stay moist and heal, it is the body's natural way of trying to correct its self.

Every one makes mistakes though, don't beat your self up over it. The point is as long as you learn from this experience and fix the problem, it makes you a better more knowledgeable person.

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