• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Ahhhhhh LOTS of blood!?!

SquamishSerpents

SquamishSerpents

Katia
Hey guys, I don't usually have any issues with my corn pairings, it's usually pretty straightforward, but we all know how snakes are, SURPRISE. Because today I got thrown for a loop.

I had a bloodred female and an anery poss. het. bloodred male paired. They had been together for probably 5 hours or so hours when I checked up on them. I found this when I opened the bin...

IMG_5557_zps7018814d.jpg


I didn't immediately take a photo though. When I found them, the blood was still wet and it almost looked as if there was a clot in the middle.

I checked both snakes up and down a couple of times after separating them, and they are both clean as whistles, so obviously it came from somebodies business end. I didn't try prodding too much but there obviously must be some kind of internal damage. Needless to say these 2 are not going to be paired any more this season, but I am mostly just wondering, has anybody seen this before?

Any ideas what could have happened? I don't really want to take them to the vet as it's about a 6hr round trip, but I'd for sure like some insight. I'm thinking when I'm finished in the room tonight maybe I'll bathe them separately and see if they open up their vents and "go" and see if there is any blood.

Ahhhhhh!
 
Not uncommon. I had my first semi-bloody pairing last weekend. I would bet $50 it's from the male...
 
Last edited:
Yeah I'm definitely going to keep an eye on the both, that's for sure. Do you think I should take the trip to the vet, or just wait it out?

What do you think could have happened? Maybe she tried to run away while his pene was inserted?
 
I've have seen some blood myself, that looks like a lot to me though. Eh, maybe not, the more that I look at it. It just looks so thick. I would take the snake to the vet if he is still bleeding, but not probably otherwise. Keep him on paper towels or substrate where there will be no doubt. He doesn't need to be roughly examined if he has a hemipenile tear that needs to heal. Hopefully it's nothing, but that's why nature gave them two, I guess!
 
Thanks Chip! Still no bleeding from anybody as of now, and they're always on paper towel anyways so if anything comes out I'll be sure to see it.
 
I saw this with one of my pairs three years ago. A lot of thick, mucus-y blood immediately after a hook-up. Nearly had a heart attack and took the male and photos to the vet.

The vet said he'd seen it before. It happens when the female jerks away suddenly during the act, causing a tiny tear in the hemipenes. There's a disproportionate amount of bleeding as that area has increased blood flow to it at the time. The vet examined Archie externally but there was no blood in the area. The vet said that he wouldn't do an internal exam as this risked reopening the injury and restarting the bleeding - could also have done additional damage.

His advice was to put Archie on paper towels and not feed for a couple of weeks, to minimise the risk of a normal-sized poop stretching the area and reopening or infecting the tear. I just had to check Archie's cloaca twice a day for signs of potential infection, although the vet told me that he'd not seen this happen in the situation before. I did that and Archie ate normally after a fortnight, having shown no distress at any point.

I tried the same pair the following year and the mating resulted in a clutch of fertile eggs, so there doesn't seem to have been lasting damage done.

So whilst it looks quite dramatic, if it's the same situation that I experienced, it actually looks a lot worse than it actually is.
 
I've seen it once, although not quite that bad.

I bet what looked like a clot was blood mixed with the "evidence," giving it that thick texture.

And that pair bred again on schedule three days later, and it never happened again.
 
bitsy said:
I saw this with one of my pairs three years ago. A lot of thick, mucus-y blood immediately after a hook-up. Nearly had a heart attack and took the male and photos to the vet.

The vet said he'd seen it before. It happens when the female jerks away suddenly during the act, causing a tiny tear in the hemipenes. There's a disproportionate amount of bleeding as that area has increased blood flow to it at the time. The vet examined Archie externally but there was no blood in the area. The vet said that he wouldn't do an internal exam as this risked reopening the injury and restarting the bleeding - could also have done additional damage.

His advice was to put Archie on paper towels and not feed for a couple of weeks, to minimise the risk of a normal-sized poop stretching the area and reopening or infecting the tear. I just had to check Archie's cloaca twice a day for signs of potential infection, although the vet told me that he'd not seen this happen in the situation before. I did that and Archie ate normally after a fortnight, having shown no distress at any point.

I tried the same pair the following year and the mating resulted in a clutch of fertile eggs, so there doesn't seem to have been lasting damage done.

So whilst it looks quite dramatic, if it's the same situation that I experienced, it actually looks a lot worse than it actually is.
Click to expand...

Very helpful bitsy! I didn't even think about the whole feeding thing. He has defecated from his last meal so hopefully anything else that's coming is small. When his next scheduled meal comes I'll give him a bigger fuzzy or something to tide him over until I know he's healing up.

Well that is, IF it's him. I'm 99% sure you're right, so thanks for talking me off the ledge! That much blood was so scary I honestly felt like one of them must have a huge gaping wound when I found that in the bin.

I didn't end up soaking them last night because by the time we were done in the snake room it was pretty late and I decided not to stress them out any further. But both parties on in their own bins on paper towels now, I'll check on them when I get home from work to see how they're doing.

Thanks guys!
 
The female from this pairing is now in her pre-lay shed. They weren't paired up again after this ordeal, so I'm confident the male is healing up fine. IF it was him. Which like I said, I'm fairly certain it was!
 
I realize this is an old thread. But this is the first one I've found that had a similar amount of blood that appeared after a pairing. I was curious if you paired the male with any other females the year it happened. My male is scheduled to breed another female, but I don't want to risk anything.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top