snake bitten by leopard gecko

[HollywoodSnake]

Hello everyone,
I'm new. Thank you for this wonderful forum.
I did a stupid thing yesterday, please forgive me and see if you can help me and my ball python, Pearl. Pearl is about two years old. I rescued her from an animal shelter about a month ago.
The stupid thing was, I let Pearl out to slither around while I worked. My adult male leopard gecko, Bam Bam, was wandering around as well. He likes to go for a walkabout on my desk in the evenings. Well, when the snake and the leopard got near each other, the lizard bit the snake on the side of the head. And then held on like a cold-blooded pit bull!
I was able to separate them, but not before the damage was done.
The snake now has a bit of skin scraped off the side of her head. Underneath the skin is bald, but I did not see any blood. Just a shiny pink patch about a centimeter square.
I did not know what to put on the wound, so I just put the snake back in her cage and she went into her hideout.

The snake is about two years old and appears healthy, and eats regularly. This just happened last night.

What should I do?

Julie in Los Angeles

[JLC]

First off, welcome to the forums! :


Second off, the bite wound doesn't sound too bad. If the skin was broken, you might apply a tiny bit of neosporin, but it doesn't sound like even that would be needed.

I would just leave the snake alone for a week or so to give her a chance to settle down after that kind of stressful occurrance. And be glad for a lesson learned about having two different animals out at the same time.

Of course, we're not vets and in no way can diagnose the severity of the problem. If you are truly fearful of it being serious, I would recommend a trip to the vet to set yourself at ease.

[Shelby]

Welcome to the boards.

Please, please never let any snake out unattended ever. All it takes is for you to turn your back for a few seconds while the snake darts under or in something and you will lose it.. maybe forever.

I would get an appointment with a reptile vet (check here to find one) http://www.arav.org/Directory.htm and in the meantime you can put some triple antibiotic ointment on it (such as neosporin)

let us know how it goes.

[HollywoodSnake]

Hi and thanks for replying.
I took the snake to a herp vet and she declared the bite to be superficial, and not to worry. She did remove 2 ticks from the snake, and since I brought in a fecal she tested that and found it had roundworms! And this is a snake I rescued from an animal shelter....
Anyway, I am happy to report that the snake is doing fine now and probably feels better without all those parasites now.

-Julie

[Shelby]

Glad to hear the snake is doing better. Sounds like the snake has a better home now!