Sweet Success Story

I was going to post this on my collection thread, but I felt like she needed a post of her own.
Last year around this time we went to pick up two BP's from a sweet couple who could no longer care for them. They had each since they were hatchlings and were now both three years old. The only issue was their female had an accident with an unregulated UTH that caught on fire (when they first got the snakes) and was badly burned. The situation had been corrected and the female made it, but she did not eat like she should have afterwards. At 3 years old she was only a little over 300 grams.
Here are her scars.
http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps5yitudpr.jpg
(No unregulated UTH's People!!!)

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...pstonelpsl.jpg
This is her around January after being with us for about 5 months. She was a finicky eater when we first got her, but we successfully converted her from live mice to FT rats. She also began to eat regularly. She was around 500 grams here.

Fast forward several more months and this is what I'm seeing when I pull open the rack. A healthy, normal sized female for her age, currently weighing in at 1700 (give or take a few grams) girlie. She is our best eater. In fact, yesterday was the first day in 7 months that she has refused a meal.

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...pskmdjjtqt.jpg

We are so excited and happy that she has made such a fantastic improvement. Due to her scarring she is a pet only, (her cloaca is damaged and she's missing part of her tail) but she serves as a reptile ambassador. She's pretty fantastic at her job and everyone who has met her has loved her. So everyone say a hello to our lovely Gertie as we celebrate her first year with us. Hopefully she will be with us many more years to continue to bring joy and education to the community around us.

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/a...psel5k3ljq.jpg

Oh wow, that's awesome!! :D I love success stories, thanks for sharing! She's purdy. :)


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Thanks! We really worked hard to get her to this point.

Sometimes I wish she was breed-able. She has some pretty awesome banding that would mesh so well with Enchi or Fire. We just don't feel comfortable putting her at risk. Maybe she would be fine, maybe not. It's not a chance we are willing to take, particularly when there are a ton of great looking normals out there.

Awesome success story! Glad you could get her weight back on, and choosing not to breed her!

I can't believe how much Tail is missing!

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Originally Posted by Tsanford

Awesome success story! Glad you could get her weight back on, and choosing not to breed her!

I can't believe how much Tail is missing!

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Thank you!

It surprises me nearly every time I see it! It looks so normal yet abnormal at the same time.

So glad everything worked out for such a beautiful animal! I'm dealing with a really bad thermal burn and just registered on this site today in search of some guidance. For me, your story is timely and encouraging.

u are awesome for taking this girl and nursing her back to health and more. that's sweet and successful. wonderful story with a happy ending. :)

Thank you! I would like to say that the previous owners had done 99% of the work on healing the burn. It would occasionally reopen if she ate a meal a little larger than a small mouse when she first came to us, but they did a very good job with correcting the problem that caused the burn (acquiring a Tstat) and getting her to heal. They just could not get her back on feed regularly and her size suffered for it. I'm sure it had to do with the trauma of the event, the open tank she was in, as well as probable pain from the stretching of the scar tissue.
She now has not had any issues with the scar reopening (about 8 months now) and is able to eat correctly sized prey - which we had seriously disparaged of after it reopened. I really believe the higher humidity in the tub has helped tremendously with this. We also had to readjust our strategy and very slowly increase the size of her prey items.

Great story, and great snake!

Thanks for sharing.