Disabled Snake

[Maybeka]

I am re-posting this under a new heading per the advice from another member (thank you)

Back story is Mia, a snake we purchased at Petsmart (i know i know) having issues eating. Has not eaten one time in the month we've had her and losing a little weight. She is 102g.

We contacted a breeder (not the one who bred and sent to Petsmart, totally outside breeder) and he came to our house and gave her a good checkup. He informed us that she was having issues with her tongue.

We took Mia to the vet yesterday. The vet said she really did look pretty healthy. Nothing wrong with her mouth, no mouth infection or anything but she does have a deformed tongue. Her tongue is there but it is very short and does not come to the end of her mouth and it does not have forks at the end. Birth defect, accident…. Who knows why it happened. He could not give us a definitive answer on if she will learn to eat on her own or not. (I wanted a yes/no but understand that he can’t predict the future) He said right now its ok to keep assist feeding her but only for the next couple of meals. Then he wants to see if she can feed herself. He did say that if she can never feed herself due to her tongue, that assist feeding an adult python would be a bit harder than assist feeding her now and may be better done by someone with more experience. So we are going to give her at least a month. If she does not eat on her own in a month Dr. says we have 3 choices: 1. Assist feed for Mia’s whole life. 2. Give her to a rescue or someone who is willing to take on a snake with physical deformity and can feed her by hand forever. 3. Euthanasia. My son is beside himself. He feels that by giving her to someone else that he is just dumping her off. I keep telling him not to feel that way. I told him to think of it as she needs more care than he is able to give and he would be giving her to someone who can give her the best life possible without euthanasia. Am I right? He is so attached to her it’s unreal. She was in his pocket all the way to the vet and on his neck while waiting in the vets office. I may be wrong, but I swear she already knows him more than anyone in the house. When I hold her she is all over nonstop moving (and I haven’t gotten used to that yet) but when my son holds her she just completely relaxes and just hangs out with him on his hand, neck, wherever. This is not what he expected from his first snake. It is going to be a hard decision my son has to make on his own.

[tttaylorrr]

this is why we always advise people to stay away from the big box stores.

do you have a pic of her? i want to see her body condition. what are you offering her to eat? live, f/t? if f/t: do you prepare the feeder correctly? have you tried offering her anything else? has she ever eaten for you on her own? do you know any history at all? i know the tongue is a huge factor here but we also need to give her the best possible chance to use it properly, and that means covering every base.

IMO i think you should give her more than a month to try to eat on her own. she's young, and probably is having a bit of a hard time figuring things out. she's likely been going through a lot with the poking and prodding and assist feeding, let alone the other handling you and your son do. in fact, i'd assist feed her until she's about 150g (200g if you can make it) and then start with the tough love of offering a prey item, and if she refuses, letting her skip that week and try again next week.

TBH i don't have any experience in assist feeding a hatchling, so this is just what i would do based on my own knowledge, but IMO i don't think we're at ultimatum level with her yet.

EDIT: i also didn't read through your other thread so if i'm missing information or am ignorant to things you've tried i'm sorry!

[Maybeka]

We have tried frozen/thawed (done correctly) and we have tried live.

We had a breeder that my son met come over and try to feed her various things (including a mouse we thought was to big but he said it wasn't) and she refused f/t and live for him also.

He is the one who assist fed her.

She's about (according to Petsmart argggg) 6 months old. Vet said maybe 6 months or less but hard to tell he said.

She doesn't even pay attention to the food in front of her, she just goes the other way.

The vet stated that there is a very good chance that she will never be able to eat on her own with her tongue the way it is.

We are going to give it a good try and that's all we can do.

- - - Updated - - -

Her tongue does not come out of her mouth, it isn't long enough to reach the end of her snoot and doesn't have any forks in it.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and my son has not touched her in a couple of weeks, only to clean the enclosure. He's been letting her settle and do her own thing.
She is VERY active in the evening.

[tttaylorrr]

We have tried frozen/thawed (done correctly) and we have tried live.

We had a breeder that my son met come over and try to feed her various things (including a mouse we thought was to big but he said it wasn't) and she refused f/t and live for him also.

He is the one who assist fed her.

She's about (according to Petsmart argggg) 6 months old. Vet said maybe 6 months or less but hard to tell he said.

She doesn't even pay attention to the food in front of her, she just goes the other way.

The vet stated that there is a very good chance that she will never be able to eat on her own with her tongue the way it is.

We are going to give it a good try and that's all we can do.

oh jeeze. it sounds like you've tried a lot of different options. i stand by my previous statement that i don't believe she's at the Ultimatum yet. how much did she weigh when you got her? and she's 102g now? @ 102g she's had to have had at least a couple meals in her life.

[SDA]

It's great you have a vet to get advise from. It's a shame you fell for the big box store scam that is their reptile sales. I am so sorry you had to experience that for your first snake. If I could I would ban petco and petsmart tomorrow from selling any living animal but that still has a long way to go to happen.

You are right you have two options

1 Assist feed until you can see if it will feed on its own or give it to a rescue that can do it. There is a chance that once you get a good feeding down it might learn to accept rodents on sight and not on sense.

2 Euthanasia. This is not failure, it is mercy

I am sorry your son is involved but this is part of life with owning reptiles and its a great life lesson to understand that sometimes you have to let go.

Good luck and it is not your fault if you have to give up.

[AbsoluteApril]

Just because I didn't see it mentioned, have you tried leaving the feeder in overnight?

I'm sorry for your situation, that is a difficult choice to make.

[Maybeka]

We didn't weight her when we got her as we didn't have a scale.

She was 104g on 03/13 and then we weighed her again on 03/23 and she was 102g.

One of our questions for Petsmart is were they assist feeding her there because she couldn't eat and didn't tell us?

The man that was helping my son look a the 2 snakes they had said that they have had some that they had to assist feed at the store because they wouldn't eat. So did they assist feed her and not inform us she was having feeding problems?

Could be, who knows.

I'll get a few pics up in a min.

[Maybeka]

Yes we have left food in her enclosure and it was not eaten.

[Maybeka]

It's great you have a vet to get advise from. It's a shame you fell for the big box store scam that is their reptile sales. I am so sorry you had to experience that for your first snake. If I could I would ban petco and petsmart tomorrow from selling any living animal but that still has a long way to go to happen.

You are right you have two options

1 Assist feed until you can see if it will feed on its own or give it to a rescue that can do it. There is a chance that once you get a good feeding down it might learn to accept rodents on sight and not on sense.

2 Euthanasia. This is not failure, it is mercy

I am sorry your son is involved but this is part of life with owning reptiles and its a great life lesson to understand that sometimes you have to let go.

Good luck and it is not your fault if you have to give up.

My son is not a young child. My son is 23 and has a full time job and is going to college, but he is still living at home. He is definitely no stranger to the loss of an animal, but he is such a big ol' softie that it just kills him.
He lost his Bearded dragon the middle of last year due to old age and has been looking at other reptiles that will fit in with him not being home all the time. Fell in love with snakes online and saw them in Petsmart and that was it. He looked at the 2 they had and felt a "connection" with Mia. She came home the next day after he got the enclosure all set up.

We've lost horses, dogs, cats etc..... it still never gets easier.

His state of mind right now is if he rehomed her to someone who agreed to care for her with her issues, he feels like he is dumping her off on someone else to be their problem. I am trying to convince him that if this is what he winds up doing that he is really giving her a life that he cannot. If he feels assist feeding her as an adult will be beyond his capabilities, then he is actually giving her a life with someone who can give her a good life, instead of euthanasia.

I have no doubt he will do what's best for her. Me myself, have been afraid of snakes but having her in my house now for a month, i really am becoming quite fond of her. I even held her the other day while he cleaned.

[Kcl]

It sounds like she basically hasn't lost weight (2g out of 104g is basically within the margin of error). If it were me, I would probably offer something live that was young enough (eyes not really open, just crawling around) to be safe to leave in overnight and go ahead and leave it in overnight. I wouldn't try for f/t right now, because if she does have a tongue issue, it would be better to have the best visual and heat cues you can, which would be live.