Wound on his head?

[gworfish]

Hi everyone,

Normally I lurk for a while to get to know a forum site before I post anything - I haven't even posted a new user greeting message here yet. But when I pulled my BP out of his tank last night I saw something that scared me enough I had to just jump in.

I'm not sure what to add beyond the image. Humidity has been a bit low lately because of the weather, but usually good. One hide is a log, and another is lego - nothing too rough. My girlfriend just noticed that one of the fake plants had the hot-glue glob we'd used to cover a piece of wire fall off, so I'm worried that he might have been rubbing against it or some such.

Anyway, I'm worried, and will run off to our local "exotic" vet if I need to, but a) we're so tight right now a visit to the vet likely means cancelling Christmas, and b) I don't know the calibre of this vet as we've never gone before, but I usually find the advice of passionate "amateurs" better than a lot of pros anyway.

Thanks in advance,
Ian.

[jason79]

Do you feed live? looks like a rat bite that has started to heal to me.

[dr del]

Hi,

It does look to have had enough time to start healing.

It should get a little better with each shed - though the shed may initially open it back up a little and make it look worse.


dr del

[singingtothewheat]

I would watch it very carefully. If does not steadily and consistently improve, get him to the vet. It could be a bacterial infection

[blackcrystal22]

I would put some neosporin (non pain-killer) on it every couple days to make sure it heals well. If it doesn't go away with a shed or two, take it too the vet to check for a bacterial infection.

Get rid of the plant with the metal sticking out. That could be potentially dangerous. Do you have any tape anywhere in your enclosure by any chance?

[West Coast Jungle]

Looks kind of large for a rodent bite. Is it possible a burn from a overhead heat source? Or maybe a rubbed/scrapped on something rough? You dont want any overhead heat source in the enclosure. Could even be a really bad retained shed that tore some scales and skin off.

[Hulihzack]

Looks like a sort of infection that a few of our babies had at work, but it doesn't get that bad out of nowhere, you would see it slowly growing. Let him shed once or twice and see if it improves at all, it's likely not a serious issue.

[CritterVet]

Very similar to this thread: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1226687

As mentioned there, keep an eye for a bump forming under the wound (abscess), but it looks like it's healing to me. This one isn't over the oro-nasal cavities, so I would be less concerned about development of stomatitis or RI.

This type of wound is often due to the snake rubbing on something. Can happen even if nothing rough is in the enclosure, but the snake is just a vigorous rubber.

[MarkS]

It looks like a head rub to me. I've gotten that once in a while with hatchlings that I've kept in certain tubs. It looks like it's healing, I'll disappear after a few sheds. If it looks like it keeps getting re-opened, change tubs or caging.

[gworfish]

Hi everyone,

First, thanks all for the advice. Second, sorry to post and then go all quiet, but I had my settings wrong and wasn’t getting email notifications of replies (now fixed), so I thought that BP.net was not very busy. Boy was I wrong.

So to cover off questions/comments in a bulk format:
-No, I don’t feed live. About 95% of what I’d read before I started keeping snakes recommended against it.
-It doesn’t seem to be improving really, but it also isn’t getting any worse either.
-I normally would never have anything in the tank with sharp edges/points, and when I find them I go crazy with my hot glue gun. I’m currently wracked with guilt that this one got somehow missed during the initial setup of the tank – I’m actually quite diligent. So no, no tape anywhere.
-No overhead heat source – right now all the tank heating is handled by UTHs.
-The two shed’s he’s had since we brought him home have both been horrible, but the head has always come off cleanly in one piece (with eye caps), so not a shedding problem I think.
-The area is no warmer than any other part of him, and there is no sign of it getting any bigger or thicker.

Thanks again everyone for the help. My limited experience with snakes has all been with corns so far, and it is a huge "security blanket" for me to know there is a huge crowd of passionate snake lovers out there on the intertubes that are so ready to help out.

Thanks,
Ian.