Worth treating?

[Lyssa981]

We have been steadily upping our snake's prey size for a while now, and are finally up to large small rats- small mediums. I understand this is most likly where he will be for the remainder of his life. He eats live, and latly a few of the rats have been rather fiesty. He is still getting the hang of wrapping larger prey (he was on mice still when we got him 6 months ago) Anyway he has gotten tagged a few times before he gets the rat dead, is it worth treating with neospen? I hate to disturb him right after eating, but also don't want him to get an infection. So far it's been pretty minor, a little blood and once a barly there cut that closed by the time he crawled into his house to sleep (no blood there only on the cold side where he struck and a few drops by the water dish) We use a paper towel substrate so I can tell pretty easily any issues. I feed in his enclosure so I never mess with him untill the next day.

[George1994]

Why not try move him onto F/T, much easier to deal with and he can't get hurt. I'd treat it, no point letting him get infected.

[Albert Clark]

Along with what George1994 posted, I would say a big reason to go f/t is that you don't want your bp to get scarred up from the rat bites. Reason people feed f/t especially breeders, is its hard to sell a bp with a scarred body. Injury is the number 1 reason to feed f/t and stay away from live. Not always possible though. A rat bite is more dangerous than a mouse bite. Snakes do have a way of avoiding those teeth (mice, rats) when they catch them and you would be surprised. When you think they got caught a lot of times they haven't . Hold off on the Neosporin unless you see something suspicious. Stay in peace and not pieces.

[Lyssa981]

Reason people feed f/t especially breeders, is its hard to sell a bp with a scarred body. Injury is the number 1 reason to feed f/t and stay away from live. Hold off on the Neosporin unless you see something suspicious. Stay in peace and not pieces.

We're past that point, I got him with a burn over 70% of his belly that will no doubt result in more scarring then a rat is going to do. No he is mine forever. I moniter feedings so it's not like I'm leaving it in over night to chew on Sampson or anything. I do have reasons for continuing to feed live, although I understand why poeple choose to switch. I've only messed with him 2x after a feeding. Once when Sampson hit an artery (I guess) and there was rat blood EVERYWHERE (yuck!) and that time I mentioned before. Both times my snake seemed irritated and stressed. He is getting better at striking and coiling. He got lazy eating mice. I just don't know enough about snakes resistances to decide when an injury is bad enough to warrent stressing him out by treating.

[George1994]

We're past that point, I got him with a burn over 70% of his belly that will no doubt result in more scarring then a rat is going to do. No he is mine forever. I moniter feedings so it's not like I'm leaving it in over night to chew on Sampson or anything. I do have reasons for continuing to feed live, although I understand why poeple choose to switch. I've only messed with him 2x after a feeding. Once when Sampson hit an artery (I guess) and there was rat blood EVERYWHERE (yuck!) and that time I mentioned before. Both times my snake seemed irritated and stressed. He is getting better at striking and coiling. He got lazy eating mice. I just don't know enough about snakes resistances to decide when an injury is bad enough to warrent stressing him out by treating.

No one is worried about the scar tissue, it is the damage that could be caused which you can avoid. You may watch, but there are certain things that you may not be able to avoid. But that is your choice and up to you and I have no problem with it at all. Many people feed snakes live for their whole lives.

I'd say any bite is worth treating. An infection will be far worse for him than picking him up for 30 seconds to apply some cream to him.

[Albert Clark]

We're past that point, I got him with a burn over 70% of his belly that will no doubt result in more scarring then a rat is going to do. No he is mine forever. I moniter feedings so it's not like I'm leaving it in over night to chew on Sampson or anything. I do have reasons for continuing to feed live, although I understand why poeple choose to switch. I've only messed with him 2x after a feeding. Once when Sampson hit an artery (I guess) and there was rat blood EVERYWHERE (yuck!) and that time I mentioned before. Both times my snake seemed irritated and stressed. He is getting better at striking and coiling. He got lazy eating mice. I just don't know enough about snakes resistances to decide when an injury is bad enough to warrent stressing him out by treating.

Okay, cool I understand. IMO, snakes do have their own immune system that is able to help them with small things like rodent bites. Most bites are not serious. A few are. As long as your husbandry is good you are giving him a better chance to ward off complications from rodent bites. Good luck.

[Sauzo]

You can also just pre kill the rats. I just do cervical dislocation on all the stuff I feed my snakes except for fuzzy or pups since they cant hurt a snake anyways. F/T is fine too but for me, I don't like it because for one I don't know how "fresh" they are and once they are frozen, from what I understand, the nutrition aka vitamins and minerals start to break down. I know vegetables lose vitamins after cut up and stored in the fridge so I would assume the same happens to frozen meats if kept too long. Now I'm not 100% certain on rodents but again, that's just why I feed live that I pre kill. As for the nicks and scratches, it cant hurt to put a little regular Neosporin(no pain killer) on a Q-Tip and dab the nicks and scratches once when it happens to prevent any infection. Your snake isn't going to stress out. I usually move most of my snakes while they are eating and none of them seem to actually care. I pick them up and put their head with the rat in their mouth on paper plates so they don't eat aspen and like I said, they don't fight or anything, they just keep gulping it down

[Lyssa981]

A cue tip might help, not sure why but I never thought of that I have some of the really long swab-style ones even. He is usualy a very chill snake, but after eating he gets super keyed up and will coil at anything the night he eats. I swear if I wasn't sure he was eating well (he's 900 grams and eating small-medium rat every week) I'd think he was wanting seconds. Since the 'bites (far too strong a word)' tend to happen on the top part of his neck due to the rat fighting after a less then steller strike, I worry he might accually try to bite me at this time. I have my ideas where this behavior came from (and most are uncomplmentry things about his previous owner that only had him on medium mice), but they are irrelevent. I typically give him the once over the next morning and if I can see a spot that looks like a bite I neosporen him. Do you think that is suficiant? he is on a paper towel sustrate, we does have a fairly large water bowl but never really saoks, he just likes to lay over it when he approaches a shed though.

[Sauzo]

Should be fine. I personally have never fed live anything except stuff fuzzy or smaller size. Anything bigger than a fuzzy, I always just pre killed. I also only did F/T a couple times as Rosey was on F/T Hopper mice when I got her and I switched to fresh pre killed rats as soon as I got her. But if you only use paper towels and keep them clean and changed regularly, you should be fine just to do the once over the next day. You just want to avoid handling as in taking them out and making them crawl around on your hands etc. If you have to pick them up and move them once or twice, it should be fine. I have never had a problem moving my snakes during or after a meal but again, that is pretty much just lifting them from one place to another. But lifting up her/his hide and doing a once over visual and dabbing any nicks would be fine but I mean even without dabbing them, a small nick isn't going to hurt. Now if it was a big chunk of flesh gone, that's a different story. Basically you just need to assess yourself if this stresses the snake out. My snakes are used to me moving them or even grabbing the rat by the tail as they are eating to move them. Rosey loves to tag her rat outside the door of her cage and then let it hang down almost to the floor while she holds the body in her coils and eats it. And Dottie loves to move her rat around off the plate onto the aspen so I always have to pick her and the rat up and plop them both back onto the plate. Neither seem to care and just keep on gulping away. So again, you just need to assess whether it freaks your snake out or doesn't and then continue to do it or stop doing it.