How important are proper temp readings? (and resulting projects)

[aahmn]

I usually only post in the Blood python forum, but wanted to post about a little project I took on over this past month. This is a reminder that if you use a glass tank, temps directly on the glass can get unbelievably hot, even if you have a thermostat (unless it's touching the heat source).

A couple ball pythons were given up by someone who had kept both together in a glass tank with undertank heater and wood shavings as substrate.This girl had burrowed under the substrate and coiled on top of the heat source. I'm guessing the cage wasn't the cleanest, either, judging by the resulting infection. I agreed to take her on and give her a shot. Here she is on her first foster day on March 7th, 2015:





The smell was horrible and the wounds were oozing a lot. I began dilute Betadine soaks twice daily for the first couple days to get some of the rotten tissue off and applied topical triple antibiotic ointment. She was started on ceftazidime injections every 3 days. I was concerned with her hydration using the antibiotics; she was quite thin, but she needed them. She was kept on clean paper substrate.

Here she was 4 days into treatment (3/11/15). I managed to remove most of the dead skin and the infection was rapidly clearing. I decreased the soaks, but continued antibiotics.




I offered small meals (F/T mice) a couple times last week, but she wasn't interested. She went into shed last week. On Sunday, 3/22/15 she started shedding, but it was really stuck to her scabby belly. I soaked her and helped remove it. It came off in one piece, which I really wasn't expecting. Here is her shed and her - you can see some dead scale areas that came off also. This was 3/22 - only 2 weeks into treatment. She is looking great!




She still has a ways to go to heal, but is recovering nicely. Parts of the belly scales are still quite hollow and the scarring is changing her shape a bit. I am no longer doing injections, but still doing some soaks and applying topical meds. She took her first meal last night. I had to get a live mouse, but she took it. I didn't want to shock her system because she's so thin and was so stressed.

Anyway, this is my reminder that heat elements in glass tanks need to be set up right. I would much rather not have to deal with this in the first place, but I'm happy I was able to help her and she responded so quickly. She'll be going up for adoption locally once she's better.