Brought home a severely underweight BP baby. Please help me get her back on track

[Armiyana]

Awww... poor baby. I was worried something like that would happen. I've seen it happen before as well.

Sadly the little one I was caring for basically peeled her skin off like yours right behind her head and it just got worse, so we had to put her down. The tissue was just too fragile to properly suture.

I'm hoping that maybe the area that your baby peeled in will be a bit easier to work with, but this may just end up being a quality of life concern. ;n;

[Spoons]

I am hopeful! I actually came across an article about vitamin C deficiencies in severely malnourished snakes causing skin fragility, blistering, and spontaneous rupture with routine skin stretching - like shedding and feeding. It seems pretty extremely likely to be what she is suffering from.

It also sounds like if that's the case, it IS treatable, and should go back to normal. A large part of her skin already feels like it is back to normal snake skin.

I figure I will bring her in to my vet once more. That small spot is healing up, but there's roughly two inches of skin on one side that seems to have also torn free, but not come loose of her body, so it's a tough hard scab like area. I expect it will work it's way free. I have been doing gentle betadine washes at night, no soaks because I want that scab of skin to stay on longer, and dabbing on a little antibiotic cream.

Sounds like vitamin C supplementation is gbe key to getting the skin in good shape. It looks like there is a few ways you can do that, from injecting the prey item to injecting tbe actual snake with calcium supplement. I am hoping I can get some snake injection or water additive so she gets daily calcium.

Otherwise she's doing well! It honestly doesn't seem to hurt her too bad. She doesn't jerk when I clean or prod at it. She ate just fine the other day. She is still her curious self. I've seen snakes with much nastier burns come out the other side ok so I'm confident she will pull through as well

I am thinking I will maybe start a separate thread just for the vitamin C issue, since it seems uncommon enough that it might he useful to be finable for future snake owners. But, I will prob wait til a vet can confirm!

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[Spoons]

RE quality of life: if it gets to that point, I will not make her suffer. However, if she is still doing well, and my vet thinks she is doing well, I will go ahead with treatment. So far she is being a rockstar, and I am hoping it stays that way - but I am not afraid of ending it if she seems to be suffering.

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[Bogertophis]

Hey, that's really interesting....yes, please DO start a thread about the Vitamin C thing, that's news to me & it's needs to be highlighted...and please do include the
source article too. I'm really glad to hear she's doing well, what a trooper she is! -but with you to thank for being her guardian angel. I think she had no chance
if you hadn't taken her home. Anyway, that would be especially awesome if extra nutrients turn out to be the answer to saving & improving her skin. Back when
I took in a boa with similar skin tears, I treated her topically and used reptile vits/mins. on her food "in case" but I don't know the whole "rest of the story" because
I moved out of state & re-homed her before doing so (-after I had her for about 6 mos.). And even if nutrition makes all the difference, it's still slow-going for a full
recuperation.

[tickyyy]

I know this post is old but I want to know how Hera is doing. I'm so worried for her. That poor thing. I recently went to the pet store and was heartbroken when I saw how thin their bp was. You're a good person for putting in the time and effort to save this snake.

[Spoons]

I know this post is old but I want to know how Hera is doing. I'm so worried for her. That poor thing. I recently went to the pet store and was heartbroken when I saw how thin their bp was. You're a good person for putting in the time and effort to save this snake.

I'm sorry, I didn't see this earlier! It's been a little bit since I've logged in.

Hera is good! We had a major, major setback during her last shed. My intent was to house her in a tub with nothing but damp towel in it for her to shed on once she cleared up from blue, because her skin is so fragile she injures herself rubbing on the harder things in her tank. With my adult, as well as with her first shed and second, she would clear from blue and shed 2ish days later. This time, she shed the day after she cleared up, before I moved her. It was a nasty shed, and the area that she had previously tore down to just a thin layer and had been healing tore clean through to the muscle as she rubbed the scabbing off - a patch about as big as the last segment of one of my fingers. This was the first time I really truly sat down and asked myself if I was keeping her alive selfishly, and if she had a poor quality of life. I struggled with it for several days.

But, I figured, let's see where it goes and take it one day at a time. I have seen snakes on here with full length nasty body burns that come through nicely, so I wanted to give it a shot. Treated with just ointment and once it scabbed over dilute betadine. It has healed over wonderfully (and very quickly) and there's new white skin over the wound. She has not for a single day looked like she was going downhill behavior wise. She's still a very curious little snake, and has a voracious appetite that almost puts my adult garbage disposal to shame. due to the wound and tightness of healing skin she has been getting two fuzzies instead of a small mouse, and she ALWAYS wolfs the first one down in minutes and waits in S-pose for the second one. She's not hand shy or lethargic or aggressive. She acts like any other snake, and as long as she is telling me she is ok I will keep fighting for her. The skin is improving slowly - the back 50% of her where she is filling in first is about like a normal snake now.

So, we've been keeping on keeping on! Healing nicely and gaining weight. I am at work, but I will update with pictures when I can.

[richardhind1972]

That's great news ,look forward to seeing the pics

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[Bogertophis]

It's a real battle to help a snake like this...battles have their ups & downs, she is SO fortunate to have you on her side. Great job- hang in there.

[Spoons]

Ok. Update woth pics. Some information on her last 3 sheds:

3 sheds ago: damaged a section of skin (see previous pics of when I found here covered in blood). The skin hardened rock hard into a scabby section.

2 sheds ago- this is the one where she shed a day early, before I could put her in the shedding tub I had ready and full of damp towel. She sloughed off the scab down to muscle. She also damaged a longer strip of skin down the side of her back.

This last shed, maybe 5 days ago: the scab from last shed pulled off, and the skin underneath is white and healing wonderfully. its closed over. She did slough off the long strip of skin that was damaged, leaving a long wound that looks nasty but is less nasty in person. It is not quite all the way through the skin. The shed, otherwise, was flawless - I got her into her shedding tub, it came free in one piece. No new damaged skin. The new skin underneath is smooth and less fragile, it gets a little better every shed.

Included is a pic of her wound today that I snapped when she came out to see if I had any mice for her. It's entirely scabbed over and is closing amd healing very well. I think it'll look like the last one after next shed, which, if it goes anything like this one will mean she is past any damaged skin and can work on smoothing out the healing over the next few sheds. You can see where the old wound was, it's the whitish streak on her.

I treat every other day with antibiotic ointment it's looking better than I ever hoped it was. I'm a tiny bit hesitant to post pics because I've gotten a little backlash elsewhere, but I stand by her treatment and that she is on a fast road to recovery and feeling good about it and is a (getting) healthy curious little snake

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[Spoons]

Last two from today after work. Pardon the water spots! From misting when she was blue

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