Burn

I'm fairly certain my baby has a burn /: the scales on half her belly are pink and kind of wrinkly.

She'd been spending a lot of time on the hot side which is uncharacteristic of her. I figured it was just because she was shedding, which is also what I attributed the pinkness to. Well she had a very successful shed and the pinkness is still there.

I had dug out her hide a little deeper than usual, just because she was getting bigger and I wanted her to have enough room. I guess it was too close to the heat pad though. I've fixed it now and mixed up the dirt some before returning her to her enclosure. I also smeared some aloe vera leaf guts on the burn.

Does anyone have any experience with this? How long does it take to heal and what should I do to speed up the process and make her comfortable? If she feels unwell is she more likely to spend a lot of time on the hot side?

Also, I don't have a thermostat because I figured if she got hot she would just move, but I'm thinking now that I should proooobably get one. Any specific suggestions?

Pics? Also you absolutely NEED a thermostat, you will and from what it sounds like did burn your animal.


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Does anyone have any experience with this? How long does it take to heal and what should I do to speed up the process and make her comfortable? If she feels unwell is she more likely to spend a lot of time on the hot side?

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Depends on the severity of the burn and while some burns can be treated at home others require veterinary attention (cleaning, anti-biotics etc).

In the meantime please change your substrate to clean paper towel, also you need to UNPLUG your UTH immediately, get a lamp dimmer from home depot or lowes as a temporary measure and order a RELIABLE T-stat, T-stat are a MUST not an option.

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Also, I don't have a thermostat because I figured if she got hot she would just move,

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BP do not move if the temperatures rise as they do not appear to be able to sense dangerous temperatures with their ventral scales.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...668016a57e.jpg
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...1d19aa131d.jpg

The brown specs are just substrate probably sticking to her because of the aloe

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Yep that would be a burn because you chose not to regulate your heat source.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h1...psp2koldrd.jpg

You now need a vet trip AND a thermostat.
All of the substrate you are using should be thrown out because you will need to keep it on paper towels until she is healed.
Please correct your husbandry before the damage is worse.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h1...psne0gktek.jpg

Her possible future

Yes that's a burn as Pit said. You need to get a thermostat immediately. We may love BPs but they are not the brightest creatures. They will sit and burn. If you leave a live rodent unattended and the snake doesn't eat it, a bp will literally sit there and let the rodent eat it to death. That's a beautiful animal you have there, you have got to be on top of its care.


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Why does she have aloe on her?

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Originally Posted by Yodawagon

Why does she have aloe on her?

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Probably to help it heal, it's one of the natural remedies for cuts and burns. Silvadene is better.

First, unplug the UTH. You chose not to buy a thermostat so now you have a burned snake. No, snakes don't move off of heat when they burn, there have been countless threads on this.

Second, your snake needs to be in a sterile environment until it heals up or the burned area can get infected. Remove all natural substrate and put her on paper towels or newspaper.

Third, that looks bad enough to need a vet visit.

This is making me sick just looking at that burn, OP please please education is a must when keeping any animal , this burn was totally preventable... How would you feel with a burn like that ? Most likely you would be in great pain a little insight to how your Snake feels. Hum your an Aircraft Mechanic Interesting[emoji22]

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I'm sure you got one of those pads from the pet store that says it's self regulating so I can understand the mistake. I'm glad you took notice and asked for help on this.

Yes well I have a friend that says a thermostat is unneccessary and he's never had a problem. That's why I never got one. Since he's a person I know in real life and his bp is in great shape I listen to him. If I listened to everything online I'd probably still be struggling with aspen bedding.

The heat pad, as peidlover79 said (thank you), isn't supposed to get hot enough to burn anything as long as there is substrate, and every time i've touched it, it hasn't been too hot. This time there just happened to be not enough substrate on it. The hide was dug too deep

And lastly, my snake almost never hangs out on the hot side. I noticed she had been lately and attributed it to shedding but I didn't expect it would be hot enough to burn her. I will get a thermostat now obviously, because the temps in my room just vary way too much for the tank temps to be consistent. This wouldn't have been a problem in winter.

In real life, her skin is a bit pink and the scales a bit wrinkly, like a sunburn, like I said. Those brown specs are from the substrate. It looks worse in the pic than in real life. Her behaviour has pretty much gone back to normal pre-shed behaviour.

So if everyone is done patronising me, chastising me, and insulting my aptitude for my career, some constructive advice would be much appreciated, thank you.

I turned off the big uth, I will line the tank with paper towel.

1. Does anyone know what else I can put on it?
2. Has anyone tried bag balm for these guys?
3. How long does it usually take to heal?
4. Is there anything USEFUL I should know that hasn't been made painfully clear, like for instance RECCOMMENDATIONS FOR A T-STAT LIKE I ASKED FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE

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Another thing I'd like to know: should I feed her while it's healing?

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Originally Posted by oculus_ignigena

1. Does anyone know what else I can put on it?
2. Has anyone tried bag balm for these guys?
3. How long does it usually take to heal?
4. Is there anything USEFUL I should know that hasn't been made painfully clear, like for instance RECCOMMENDATIONS FOR A T-STAT LIKE I ASKED FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE

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I cannot find our tub of bag balm so I don't know if it is petrol base or not, if it is you don't want to use it.
A lot of it depends on how deep the burn is.
Remember two things:
1 Just because it works in one house doesn't mean it will work in another. (Your friend might like gambling with his animals, that's on him and this is on you)
2 Many of us here don't just take time out of our day to rip you a new one because we like to. We have seen and been there too many times. Many people forget we take all these animals in to our care because WE wanted them, not because they wanted us to.

Keep everything extra clean and see what it starts to look like in a shed or two.
The damage is already done and it might get a little worse before it starts to heal up.
Also your room temperature has nothin to do with an unregulated mat running too hot (that's what they do) and you are warm blooded so what feel comfortable to you can be scalding hot to a cold blooded reptile.

If she will eat yes but smaller meal. Do you feed live or frozen?

Buy a herpstat intro plus. 109 shipped. Or check out a vivarium electronics.

As far as dependable thermostats you can go with the economically priced Hydrofarms, or the higher end Herpstats or Vivarium Electronics.

http://www.amazon.com/MTPRTC-ETL-Cer...arm+thermostat

http://www.amazon.com/Herpstat-2/dp/...438.1459106239

Your snake probably avoids the hot side because its to hot, like others have said just because its not hot to your warm blooded temp of 90+ dosnt means its not to hot for the cold blooded snake as proven by the burn, just because there is substrate that dosnt prevent them from burrowing down to the heat source.

No one is ripping on you or patronizing you, we are giving you solid info based on our years upon years of collective knowledge taking care of these creatures and keeping them healthy...just because something that shouldnt be done works for someone thats not a guarantee it will work for you, an example being people keeping multiple snakes housed together with no issue yet its known to be a horrible practice and bad things can and have happened because of this practice same thing goes with heat pads some people use them without thermostats problem free for months or even years but it only takes that one time the snake decides it dosnt feel like moving or they want to dig down into the substrate for something bad to happen

If you are just using the thermostat to control the heat pad, the cheaper ones *should* be fine. They will allow a much larger temperature swing than the more expensive Herpstat, but they'll work for giving your snake some heat to lie on without letting it get too hot. The one caution about the cheaper ones is that if they fail, the heater goes all the way on rather than all the way off. So you might want to use a lamp dimmer in addition, just so you know for sure that full blast isn't actually full blast. But anyway, Hydrofarm thermostats are sold for starting seedlings. There's a ZooMed one that I think is similar. The expensive ones are Herpstat and Vivarium Electronics, which come in various versions depending on how many devices you want to control with it.

The thickness of the substrate above the heat mat is potentially sort of a complicated subject; thick substrate acts as an insulator, so that the surface of the glass underneath could get really very hot even with the substrate surface not that hot. But then if the snake digs down just a little further, it can theoretically encounter a temperature much higher than you would have thought. Lots of heat mats recommend no more than half an inch of substrate over the heat mat, for exactly this reason.

One last suggestion is that you prop the entire tank up on blocks so that there is air flow underneath. You'll lose more heat from the heat mat that way, so it's less efficient in that sense, but it will reduce the amount of possible heat buildup.

Another complicating factor is that the snake's body itself can have the same kind of insulating effect, meaning that the temperature isn't too high when you just check the surface by itself, but when the snake curls up on it, heat can build up. A thermostat will prevent that from happening.
You can also use a dimmer, if you can get it dialed in. This insulating effect is a little hard to test, but you can check it by using a thermometer with a probe (like those indoor/outdoor household digital thermometers) and put the probe over the hot spot. Then check what the temperature does when the snake is actually sitting on top of the probe and turn down the dimmer until it stays stable at the desired temperature while the snake is there. When the snake leaves the temp will drop, but that's OK.

I use aspen in my BP's tank, but over the hot spot there are a couple layers of paper towels instead. The water bowl and the hide hold them in place, and there's a little aspen around the edges. That lets me set the heat mat to really low power using a dimmer, so there's no possibility of it ever getting that hot enough to burn. I might have to reassess that particular setup when he gets big and strong enough to rearrange his furniture, but it's working fine for now. It's also handy for cleanup, since he likes to do his business in his warm hide, and it's easier to see the mess.

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

Hydrofarm thermostats are sold for starting seedlings.

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I see this and its entertaining.
All thermostats are made to control a heating or cooling device, they do not know what their client is.

I use Microclimate B1 dimmer stats that have always worked great for me. The best at holding steady temps In My Opinion !
For me as well an IR temp gun is a must. It really helps locate hot spots if there are any and make sure where the hot hide is the floor temp is consistent

Iv had no experience with burns but it would be a vet visit for me just in case.

When I first plugged a heat mat in the temp only got to about 40°c but when something was on top of it it was quite a bit higher. Again an IR gun was handy and since I got it I use it all the time to check things

Here ya go OP here is a expensive one If Money is the Problem, and I don't care if 20 people who know snakes says you don't need a Thermostat thats just plain Stupidity EDUCATION NEEDED HERE apparently for your Friends to.[emoji106] Im not ragging on you these are just the facts.. The Model thats by Zoomed can be found online at Amazon.com or most Pet Stores online its the least cost of all mentioned but is far better than nothing, my heart is broke over seeing that horrible Burn on that Poor Innocent Snake.[emoji35]

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Originally Posted by oculus_ignigena

Does anyone know what else I can put on it?

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Betadine diluted with enough clean water so it looks like weak iced tea. Silver sulfadiazine also works, normally it's prescription-only from your vet or a doctor but http://www.mountainside-medical.com/ will sell it without a scrip.

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Originally Posted by oculus_ignigena

Yes well I have a friend that says a thermostat is unneccessary and he's never had a problem. That's why I never got one. Since he's a person I know in real life and his bp is in great shape I listen to him. If I listened to everything online I'd probably still be struggling with aspen bedding.

The heat pad, as peidlover79 said (thank you), isn't supposed to get hot enough to burn anything as long as there is substrate, and every time i've touched it, it hasn't been too hot. This time there just happened to be not enough substrate on it. The hide was dug too deep

And lastly, my snake almost never hangs out on the hot side. I noticed she had been lately and attributed it to shedding but I didn't expect it would be hot enough to burn her. I will get a thermostat now obviously, because the temps in my room just vary way too much for the tank temps to be consistent. This wouldn't have been a problem in winter.

In real life, her skin is a bit pink and the scales a bit wrinkly, like a sunburn, like I said. Those brown specs are from the substrate. It looks worse in the pic than in real life. Her behaviour has pretty much gone back to normal pre-shed behaviour.

So if everyone is done patronising me, chastising me, and insulting my aptitude for my career, some constructive advice would be much appreciated, thank you.

I turned off the big uth, I will line the tank with paper towel.

1. Does anyone know what else I can put on it?
2. Has anyone tried bag balm for these guys?
3. How long does it usually take to heal?
4. Is there anything USEFUL I should know that hasn't been made painfully clear, like for instance RECCOMMENDATIONS FOR A T-STAT LIKE I ASKED FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE

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The problem isn't really only the heat pad getting too hot. It is also that it can sometimes rendomly malfunction and just get super hot. Years ago I've seen them get so hot that they could burn my skin. I've seen tubs melt from them. Luckily they weren't being used for my snakes. But I've seen in my estimation, 5 different ones malfunction and reach a dangerous temp to where I threw them out. I've also see ln bps clear the floor of substrate to sit on the bare enclosure bottom. A tstat or a dimmer can easily prevent all the what ifs

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

I see this and its entertaining.
All thermostats are made to control a heating or cooling device, they do not know what their client is.

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OK, they don't know what *everyone* does with their product. But they do know who their target market is, which is how they know which stores to try and sell to, how they design their packaging and logo, the reason why the thing is green and not hot pink, etc. And it's a lot easier to find a product if you know what it's being sold for, because then you know what store to look for it in. Plenty of people use Hydrofarms for reptiles, but they are still sold in the garden dept, and I bet a whole lot more people use them for seedlings.

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

OK, they don't know what *everyone* does with their product. But they do know who their target market is, which is how they know which stores to try and sell to, how they design their packaging and logo, the reason why the thing is green and not hot pink, etc. And it's a lot easier to find a product if you know what it's being sold for, because then you know what store to look for it in. Plenty of people use Hydrofarms for reptiles, but they are still sold in the garden dept, and I bet a whole lot more people use them for seedlings.

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Pardon me for butting in but I believe what Pit meant was that the thermostats themselves, the actual machines, do not know their client/what they're heating.