As most of you know by now, my moron olive python "Haggis" has burnt a fair length of his underbelly on his enclosure lights. Never mind the fact that there were heatshields, he just ripped them off. In fact, Haggis has trashed 4 enclosures to date. After discussing the problem with a few fellow herpers, I've now heard of 3 olives doing the same thing this year. Guess what? All of them were males. A couple of us with females have noticed that the girls just dont seem to do it. Naturally enough, this had us wondering why the males seemed to make such a habit of it.
Today we had Haggis over at Dr. Jim Greenwood's (Canterbury Vetinary Clinic, in Surrey Hills, Melbourne), one of Melbourne's best known specialist reptile vets, for an unrelated problem. (Haggis snores and guess what he wouldnt do it for the vet!!) Jim then pointed out this was not possible as pythons do not have vocal cords. He then checked for respitory problems and Haggis was all clear, Guess what? we got him home and he started again. While we were discussing his burns and getting some great tips which I'll share in a minute, Jim put the cage trashing habit into perspective for us. It seems it's not just olives, it's MOST male snakes that have a fetish for their lights. Why? Because over winter cooling and the spring period, the hormones drive a snake to wander in search of a female. Where does it have to wander in a captive environment? Over its cage furniture, which includes, you guessed it, the light fittings. If the snake is big enough (Haggis is 6kg) it is a fairly simple job to tear every screw out of the melamine. As he explained, it if you can pull out the fitting a python will have no problem at all. Result: a burned snake. The solution, which I've almost finished doing, is to either install a false roof in the enclosure, or to cut a hole in the top, cover it with mouse mesh, and mount the lights over the mesh. This way the animal has nothing to swing off, and burns become impossible.
As for the burns themselves, the first (and most vital) step is immediate vetinary advice, in case the burns go deep enough to damage muscle or organs. If, like most cases, they are superficial, apply bepanthen cream twice a day. Be prepared for this to leave you with an open wound, but this is actually a good thing as subsurface healing can cause liver problems, as was seen by the green bile in Haggis's urea. as well as the fact that the snake's natural movement risks tearing the dry scabs, and actually deepening the wound in the process. You must remove all cage furniture it has too be a truma free cage paper water only. I have always believed that burns were best treated by keeping them dry to eliminate the risk of infection, but, for the reasons given above, this is not the case in reptiles. For this reason, avoid the usual treatments like Betadine, Silvazene, etc. Bepanthen is quite cheaply available at your local supermarket, and seems to be the best treatment for this problem.(really good for tattoos too) Soak the snake for 1/2 an hour to an hour once a week, and dont feed the animal while the treatment is in effect.
Retained sheds will be a problem for a while after the burns are healed, due to the scarring removing the usual layer of oil in between the new & the old scales. This can be helped by simply adding 1 or 2ml of "Fluffy" or a similar low-perfumed fabric softner to it's baths. This replaces the missing oils, and the sloughing goes easier.
Today we had Haggis over at Dr. Jim Greenwood's (Canterbury Vetinary Clinic, in Surrey Hills, Melbourne), one of Melbourne's best known specialist reptile vets, for an unrelated problem. (Haggis snores and guess what he wouldnt do it for the vet!!) Jim then pointed out this was not possible as pythons do not have vocal cords. He then checked for respitory problems and Haggis was all clear, Guess what? we got him home and he started again. While we were discussing his burns and getting some great tips which I'll share in a minute, Jim put the cage trashing habit into perspective for us. It seems it's not just olives, it's MOST male snakes that have a fetish for their lights. Why? Because over winter cooling and the spring period, the hormones drive a snake to wander in search of a female. Where does it have to wander in a captive environment? Over its cage furniture, which includes, you guessed it, the light fittings. If the snake is big enough (Haggis is 6kg) it is a fairly simple job to tear every screw out of the melamine. As he explained, it if you can pull out the fitting a python will have no problem at all. Result: a burned snake. The solution, which I've almost finished doing, is to either install a false roof in the enclosure, or to cut a hole in the top, cover it with mouse mesh, and mount the lights over the mesh. This way the animal has nothing to swing off, and burns become impossible.
As for the burns themselves, the first (and most vital) step is immediate vetinary advice, in case the burns go deep enough to damage muscle or organs. If, like most cases, they are superficial, apply bepanthen cream twice a day. Be prepared for this to leave you with an open wound, but this is actually a good thing as subsurface healing can cause liver problems, as was seen by the green bile in Haggis's urea. as well as the fact that the snake's natural movement risks tearing the dry scabs, and actually deepening the wound in the process. You must remove all cage furniture it has too be a truma free cage paper water only. I have always believed that burns were best treated by keeping them dry to eliminate the risk of infection, but, for the reasons given above, this is not the case in reptiles. For this reason, avoid the usual treatments like Betadine, Silvazene, etc. Bepanthen is quite cheaply available at your local supermarket, and seems to be the best treatment for this problem.(really good for tattoos too) Soak the snake for 1/2 an hour to an hour once a week, and dont feed the animal while the treatment is in effect.
Retained sheds will be a problem for a while after the burns are healed, due to the scarring removing the usual layer of oil in between the new & the old scales. This can be helped by simply adding 1 or 2ml of "Fluffy" or a similar low-perfumed fabric softner to it's baths. This replaces the missing oils, and the sloughing goes easier.
