Let me preface this by saying, I am a dumb ass.

This is a short tale of what could have ended up far worse than it did. Recently, I moved both my ball python and my dwarf retic into a sort of tub set up, and at the time it completely slipped my mind that snakes love to get into tape when ever they can . That being said, I had taped my heat pads to the back of the enclosures thinking that would be a sturdy way to keep them there.

Everything was going fantastic, temps were going good humidity was settling slightly under 50% for both cages. Then I looked into Artimus's tub, and promptly freaked out. During the night, he had gotten out of his cage and caught a piece of the duct tape that I had foolishly not noticed was hanging off and promptly got stuck. He proceeded to I can only guess wiggle around on it till he got off, and decided the cage was a better place for him.

At this point, i'm freaking out and calling the vet trying to get in today, thinking he tore off his scales and infection the whole nine yards. Now between the time I noticed, and the Vet I began scouring the internet of pictures and threads of snakes and tape, and most if not all of them were pictures of the snake missing its' actual skin, and showing the muscle under that. No where could I find a picture of what Artimus looked like. The vet informed me that he has scraped himself similar to how we would scrape our knee, not removing the scales at all merely just scraping off the top layer.

I have attached a photo, because I have yet to come across a case similar, and was wondering if you good people had any more light to shed on future treatment. (Not that I do not trust the vet but I live in a small town and he's not really reptile specific.)




Thank you for taking time to read all of that.