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  1. #1
    BPnet Senior Member cchardwick's Avatar
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    My retic has a swollen mouth...

    Has anyone ever seen anything like this before? Her mouth has been like this for a couple weeks now. Right before it started my retic went after a large rat (pre-killed of course) and slammed her head into the wall of the tub really hard. I'm thinking it may have bruised her mouth? And I've been feeding her extra large rats, she actually had two this week a few days before I took this photo, it seems like maybe the jumbo rats irritated it even more. I was hoping to get a couple large rats in her before she goes off of feed for the next couple months.

    She is gravid with eggs so I'm not sure I want to transport her to the vet, but I did send them an e-mail, hoping to send them some photos and hopefully they can tell me what is going on. She has no other symptoms, not lethargic or making sounds, she seems to be her normal self besides this enlargement in her mouth.

    Her tub smells fresh and clean, I just needed to do a spot clean in these pics. I did a quick internet search and I didn't see anything similar. She is real mellow, not pushing on the tub or pacing at all. Very strange... She did seem to have a slight pre-ovulation swell this morning.





    Last edited by cchardwick; 04-14-2018 at 11:46 PM.


  2. #2
    BPnet Lifer Sauzo's Avatar
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    Holy cows!!! You let it get it that bad!!?? Looks like an abscessed tooth to me or possibly mouthrot but i dont see the cheese usually with mouthrot. Regardless, she needs a vet NOW. And judging by the front of the face around the pits, it looks she has been pushing too from all redness and skin.

    Also are you sure she is pregnant? I wouldnt imagine her pushing and doing that to her face if she was pregnant. Did you get an ultrasound done?

    But regardless, she needs a vet, pregnant or not. If that gets too bad, it could turn in sepsis and possibly kill her.

    And snakes are good at hiding illness until it is too late. In the wild they cant show injury or illness as that is a dinner bell to other animals. That is why us as owners have to be on our toes and look for any strange behavior or 'things'.

    And like i said above, it looks to me like she has been pushing judging by the front pits looking split and all the red blood dots around it. Caesar's face looked like that when i tried the 2 weeks feeding but he didnt have the swollen mouth like that. His lip on the side had a very slight bump to it which i watched like a hawk but it went down after he ate.

    Have you tried opening her mouth with the stick of a Q-Tip to look inside?
    Last edited by Sauzo; 04-15-2018 at 12:34 AM.
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  4. #3
    BPnet Lifer zina10's Avatar
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    This looks absolutely terrible !!

    Honestly, I don't understand you. If this has been looking like this for 2 weeks, why in the world haven't you already been to the vet ? When we breed animals, the adults should be taken care off 100% and not put into danger because the possible offspring may be worth more then they are.

    This animal is the one you need to focus on, not her eggs or possible hatchlings you may or may not loose. This animals needs help ! 2 Weeks ago. And why still feeding it with a infection such as that? Even if she accepted the food, you should have left her empty so you don't add regurgitation to the mix if she had gotten even worse and you finally decided to go to the vet. Now is not the time to worry about adding weight, ovulation or eggs.

    You say you may have seen a slight pre ovulation swell. Even if that is true, there is still a long way to go until the eggs would come. This animal shouldn't stay in this condition. It doesn't look good. That is a large infection and snakes usually have solid puss that has to be excised before the wound can heal. As to what happened, who knows. She might have broke a took or punctured herself with a tooth or the rats teeth.

    Bad infections can quickly go septic and once that goes into the blood, its all but lights out. It looks painful, too.
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  6. #4
    BPnet Senior Member cchardwick's Avatar
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    Actually she doesn't push at all. I'm pretty sure she slammed her face against the side of the tub real hard when she went after that rat, she actually shook the whole rack, it scared the heck out of me LOL. I think it's mostly damage from impact, it pretty much popped up overnight. I probably shouldn't have fed her big rats after that incident. I can tell which snakes are pushers, especially with tubs with windows since I'm down in the snake room every day. And the pushers will move the bedding from the front of the tub and away from the sides. Definitely not a pusher, she is as mellow as they come, except that one day with that one rat LOL. Usually she doesn't get that excited, I usually just lay the rat in the tub and close it up and she slowly goes over and gently eats it. Her mouth actually just looked a little sore, but there wasn't a bulge coming out until I noticed it yesterday, worse today so I called the vet.

    I did an ultrasound a couple months ago and I thought her follicles were about 20 mm, but the image was really fuzzy and I wasn't 100% sure. I just did another ultrasound tonight, the results are clear. Her follicles are all less than 9 mm. Looks like she won't go this year after all, bummer. They say it takes retics three years to mature and she is just two and a half now. I had the male in there with her quite a few times. They were in a ball a couple times but I never did see a positive tail lock. The male was ready and he was trying but she just didn't know what was going on LOL.

    Here's her ultrasound results from tonight:



    Last edited by cchardwick; 04-15-2018 at 01:24 AM.


  7. #5
    BPnet Senior Member cchardwick's Avatar
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    Actually I don't believe that this is an infection. There is no drainage or puss and she still has an aggressive appetite, in fact she popped up and was in feeding mode tonight when I opened up the tub, not something you would expect from a sick snake. I'm guessing it's just swollen from being bruised, we'll see what the vet says about it. Now that I know she isn't gravid I feel like it's safer to move her without risk of injury, at least injury to the snake, not too sure about injury to the vet LOL.
    Last edited by cchardwick; 04-15-2018 at 01:40 AM.


  8. #6
    BPnet Senior Member Sunnieskys's Avatar
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    I would absolutely be freaking out! Vet now like everyone has said.
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  9. #7
    BPnet Lifer Sauzo's Avatar
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    That is an infection. My big boa got a sinus infection which i didnt notice until the top of nose started swelling. Then i ran her to the vet. She had a fine appetite and acted like a snake but it was an infection. The vet put her on a shot of Fortaz every 3 days for a month and it cleared up. But her nose wasnt even half as bad looking as that poor retics mouth.

    Worst case, the antibiotics cause her to lose the eggs. The parent snake is more important like Zina said.

    And you can see even the end of her nose is swollen as it is risen up. And the raw looking nose might be from slamming but i dont see it happening just once. Raw looking wounds of big swells like that dont just happen overnight. But hey, your snake. By comparison, you can Caesar's face. How it is smooth along the top of his head to the end of his snout. Also you can see his pits dont have that fleshy kind of torn look to them. Like i said, Caesar had that same look on the pits as yours when he pushed a lot but he also had it on the side pits too as he would run his face up and down the center brace on his AP cage.

    And I'm confused, i thought she was gravid?

    And the vet will be fine. If he/she is an exotic vet, they have handled far worse tempered animals im sure lol. Heck my vet told me Allison my JCP took a few shots at her and the vet knew she would pull through from the PAM injestion when she did that and was cruising all over her tub lol. Plus, no idea about the temper on you snake but I had to unhook an upper tooth that pierced the upper lip on Caesar and let me tell you, he was not happy about that. I thought he was going to bite me for sure but nope, he just was pissed and shoved my hand away and didnt want anything to do with for 4 days. After that it was like nothing happened haha.
    Last edited by Sauzo; 04-15-2018 at 01:56 AM.
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  11. #8
    BPnet Senior Member jmcrook's Avatar
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    My retic has a swollen mouth...

    There would not be drainage and pus in the same way as a mammalian wound. Reptile pus is a solidified mass. I will say that most of the time if a retic will eat, then it will heal. However, that looks very bad in my opinion. My girls face was at best maybe 1/8 as bad as this recently and I was worried as hell. After hitting the tub as hard as you described I’d worry about broken teeth stuck in the gums


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    Last edited by jmcrook; 04-15-2018 at 01:55 AM.

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  13. #9
    BPnet Lifer Sauzo's Avatar
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    I'd also be worried about a broken jaw....Rosey once slammed the litter dam on her AP cage going for a rat and i just about had a heart attack and watched her face like a hawk to make sure there was nothing broken. She ended up being ok.
    Last edited by Sauzo; 04-15-2018 at 01:59 AM.
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  14. #10
    BPnet Veteran Alter-Echo's Avatar
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    Yeah, definitely either an abscess or swelling from something getting fractured.... I saw this happen to a bci at the shop I used to work at... turned out that the jaw broke and caused an abscess... snake ended up dying and it had only been going on for a few days.....

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