Red Belly Scales...help!

[BaierBalls]

Was cleaning out his cage today and found this...his belly scales are this almost "burnt orange" color from his midsection to his vent. It is just his belly scales. It must have come up quickly as I handle him fairly often and had not noticed it before. What in the world is this? Septicemia...? Vet appt. day after tomorrow. Anyone seen this before or know what it might be??

[dr del]

Hi,

Can you get us some close up clear pics of the scales?

What kind of substrate are you using and what kind of heat - if it is a UTH is it on a thermostat?

It looks as though it could be scale rot but it is covering an awful lot of area to spring up quickly.

The vet is definately the good idea with anything that widespread and I hope it is something easily treated.

I think the best plan until the vet appointment would be changing the substrate to paper towels and keeping everything as clean as you can.

Anyone with better eyesight get more definate info from the photo?


dr del

[bsash]

Looks like scale rot to me, switch to paper towels for substrate.

[BaierBalls]

He is on aspen shavings...most of my snakes are in a rack with a thrmostat...but he has been in a glass aquarium for the past couple months with a small Zoo-Med UTH without a thrmostat. Are you thinking a burn?

I will try posting some closer picture. Uploading pictures to this site only works 50% of the time for me and I don't know why. They are all the exact same format but half of the time after I upload it will say "format not supported," or something to that nature. I will give it a shot later.

[Repsrul]

but he has been in a glass aquarium for the past couple months with a small zoo-med uth without a thrmostat. are you thinking a burn?

ding ding ding!!!!!!!!!!

[bsash]

If you have a glass aquarium without a thermostat, then yes, it most likely is a burn.

[dr del]

Hi,

He is on aspen shavings...most of my snakes are in a rack with a thrmostat...but he has been in a glass aquarium for the past couple months with a small Zoo-Med UTH without a thrmostat. Are you thinking a burn?

I will try posting some closer picture. Uploading pictures to this site only works 50% of the time for me and I don't know why. They are all the exact same format but half of the time after I upload it will say "format not supported," or something to that nature. I will give it a shot later.

Are the aspen shavings damp or wet?

And, sadly, yes I am thinking burn just from the speed of appearance alone. For scale rot to get to that extent it would almost certainly take some time. When was the last time you had examined him before you noticed it?

If you keep getting gallery problems take a note of the error message and let one of us know and we will see if we can work out what the problem is.


dr del

[Vypyrz]

I think it may be a burn. I had one of those small Zoo-Meds without a t-stat on my first glass tank set-up. As soon as I learned about needing a controller for it I went in and moved the aspen away and shot it with a temp gun and it was reading 106F. Fortunately, my snake hadn't burrowed down to the glass yet and I was able to get a dimmer in time. Good luck with the recovery...

[midtx350z]

Certainly looks like a burn... Let us know what the vet says.

[Mrgbb]

looks like a burn to me i think scale rot is more of a red color but just to be safe put him on paper towels for a little bit and see what happens....