Poor thing, he's had a rough time of it. Carol, the first thing is of course to make sure your quarantine procedures are bang on. You want to make sure you don't ever pass anything around with these rescues.

Having had a couple of adults come in here that were severely underweight this is what we do....

- set them up in our bedroom, in a very quiet corner, total quarantine, no handling, lights always low, no traffic, no one but Mike and I allowed anywhere near the snake or it's enclosure

- complete tip to tail physical check over to assess what's going on followed by a good long soak to remove as much of the messy stuck shed as possible, then they are tucked in their quiet home for a week at least with absolutely no contact other than a very quickly daily peek and to check their water or collect a fecal sample

- fecal float to the vet if needed (no need to take the snake in unless the float comes back positive for internal parasites)

- first feeding is always live, always with pre-scenting the area first, usually a rat fuzzy which is safe to leave alone with the snake, at night, in the dark with minimum fuss, we just put the fuzzy in and leave the room

- if the snake takes this first meal we don't offer a second one that week, we want to make sure this snake keeps down this first small meal successfully

- 5 days later we offer another fuzzy rat and if they take that one, a second fuzzy that same night

- 5 days later we feed again, usually bumping up slowly to pups, weans, etc. over a number of feeds

- when the adult snake is willingly taking an appropriately sized prey item and showing healthy weight gain we drop to every 7 days

We usually see decent weight gain and a few fast sheds as they start to feel better and get whatever leftover shed off them. We try hard to not have to put them through the stress of more soaking and assisting sheds if we can avoid that. Most seem to be able to get whatever was left off in subsequent healthy shed cycles.

We do no handling for these snakes other than normal cage maintenance and a weekly weight check. Once they are eating well again and coming along we start handling gently and drop them to a monthly or so weighing in. Just be very patient, some of them takes weeks to get over the shock before they start to perk up enough to eat. See your vet is anything concerns you though, a good herp vet is your best friend when you take in snakes like this.