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Dehydration

dragar

dragar

sammy snake begins with S
hi guys i have noticed over the past couple of weeks that my sammie ( almost 3 mnths old) i have had him almost a mnth now and never seen him drink except on a couple of occasions while im holding him and he will drink from his water bowl whilst sat in my hand (awww) he started to look like he was going to shed, eyes went blue and skin went pale ( he was jumpy when handled but i was reading on here tht some times when theyre shedding that they cant see too well so i disregarded tht... i took him to the pet shop who said that he was ready for shedding, he still hasnt shed but i have tried to increase the humidity in the viv by spraying water in every now and again... and since then his eyes have gone very clear and red (back to normal).... but he still lives in the hide on the cool side of the viv and only comes out when handled.

the question here is.... do you think he was dehydrated? and if the tank is a little hot or what... i only have a red light bulb in the viv and im getting slightly worried... i dont want him to go wrinkly and die...

hes eating as well as ever by the way just not drinking too well :shrugs:

all help welcome
 
OK...to start off, proper sentence structure with the use of capitalization and punctuation would help the reader figure out what you are trying to say.

Next, some more information about your viv set-up is required. Is the red light the only source of heat for your snake and is it directly in the viv? What are the temps in your viv on the cool end and the warm end?

Most people don't witness their snakes drinking. It is more of the occasionally observed pleasure.

It does sound like your snake is ready to shed. Their eyes will go back to normal after the blue phase, but just before the actual shed. Snakes tend to stay hidden when in blue, which is probably why your snake is still hiding after a month in his new home.
 
oooh ok then but then again i thought that they wouldnt eat before they shed... but he is still shedding?

VIV

my viv is set up with a hide on either side, the red lamp is inside the viv and slightly off centre to the left, i also have a heat mat on the back of left hand side of the viv but he never uses that. It is run by a thermostat.

he has the water bowl in the middle and a branch for climbing on... but never uses the water bowl as far as im aware and he doesnt seem to like the branch,
 
i meant hes just eaten yesterday and iv never seen him move so fast for the mouse ( i had slit the back which might have been why) but still didnt think that they fed whilst shedding.
 
You can't correlate "number of times I've seen him drink" to "extent of dehydration" in any animal. You have to look at the condition of the animal: Is it thin? Is the skin wrinkled? Can you see its bones? What does the hair or skin (or scales) look like? What do the mucosal membranes look like? Is there saliva? What do the eyes look like? That's how you determine dehydration or starvation.

dragar said:
my viv is set up with a hide on either side, the red lamp is inside the viv and slightly off centre to the left, i also have a heat mat on the back of left hand side of the viv but he never uses that. It is run by a thermostat.
Click to expand...

A heat lamp AND a mat? Whoa. What size is the viv?

As Susan asked, what are the temps on both the warm side and the cool side? I'd be more concerned about those.

SaulsMom
 
dragar said:
oooh ok then but then again i thought that they wouldnt eat before they shed... but he is still shedding?

VIV

my viv is set up with a hide on either side, the red lamp is inside the viv and slightly off centre to the left, i also have a heat mat on the back of left hand side of the viv but he never uses that. It is run by a thermostat.

he has the water bowl in the middle and a branch for climbing on... but never uses the water bowl as far as im aware and he doesnt seem to like the branch,
Click to expand...

Is your heat LAMP controlled by a thermostat?

We loaned someone a thermostat and a heat mat because they were causing their snake a great deal of heat stress using just a lamp in pretty much the same sort of setup as yours - the lamp was almost in the centre (which provides no real 'cool end') and it was not controlled by a thermostat.

After shutting off their heat lamp and putting a heat mat on a stat under one side only of the cage, their snake went from a twelve-inch ballistic psychopath into a lovely two-foot animal who is nervous of handling but is otherwise fine.

Then again... their kid's getting tired of the snake now.
 
What

Are

Your

Temps?



If you are trying to regulate heat, you'll need to know where you are now and where you need to get to.

SaulsMom
 
sauls mum chill out, i know what you sed and as i said i dont have thermometers in the viv (ergo not knowing the temps)

and as i said i dont know when i can afford thermometers...

im asking for help not to be spoken to like that, im not thick
 
You can get a digital thermometer with probe from Maplins for under £20. They sel on-line if there isn't a shop near you. It would be best to use either just the lamp or the mat controlled by the thermostat, not both
 
so if i put the lamp on the thermostat it will work would it not confuse sammy though with the lamp turning on and off???

Hmmmm

and im sorry but you have no idea how skint i am atm, i got enough for his food and chippings but thts it. :cry: :cry: :cry:
 
So I won't let off at how you'd cover vet bills if anything went wrong, but you know that's what I'm thinking.
Turn off the lamp, just use the heat mat with the thermostat controlling the temperature. corns don't need light at all, apart from ambient room light from your window or lightbulb, but temperatures too high are a serious and urgent health risk.
 
nice one il get that sorted il turn the light off and get the matt on i can get money in an emergency
 
welli have swapped the thermostat from the mat to the lamp seeing as i dont think that the matt would ever create enough heat on its own for sammy to get warmed up, so i thought seeing as corn snakes dont need light as much, then the light as a heat generator would be ok...

he seems fine in himself like i sed but i just wanted to make sure that he was not getting dehydrated.

how many different stages of shedding are there then?
 
i have a heat map and a heat lamp in my vivarium, and i dont think theres anything wrong at all, i think its needed. Both are on thermostats, and i have a digi temperature probe. Without the lamp my cool side temps would drop far too low and the humdity would rise too high. The probe on the warm side is right under substrate ontop of the UTH and i regulate the temps so as it doesnt get too warm.

As long as temps are ok, i see no reason not to use the lamp pand UTH, especially if you live in a cold, wet place, like me :rolleyes:
 
TWGarland said:
i have a heat map and a heat lamp in my vivarium, and i dont think theres anything wrong at all, i think its needed. Both are on thermostats, and i have a digi temperature probe. Without the lamp my cool side temps would drop far too low and the humdity would rise too high. The probe on the warm side is right under substrate ontop of the UTH and i regulate the temps so as it doesnt get too warm.

As long as temps are ok, i see no reason not to use the lamp pand UTH, especially if you live in a cold, wet place, like me :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
But as dragar has said, he has no thermometer and only 1 thermostat at the moment, so he has no idea what his temperatures inside the viv are
 
Typically, your snakes eyes will go cloudy for a number of days, than clear up for 2 or 3 days prior to the shed, and than they will shed.

I don't think you've anything to worry about, regarding the shedding process.

I do have a question regarding a thermostat and a heat lamp. Where is the probe for the thermostat, and how does it regulate the heat output? And how often does the light turn on and off because of this cycle? Lamps get alot hotter on the surface than the UTH would, but are less efficient at heating the ambient temperature in your viv.

If you UTH covers half the bottom of your viv, and the thermostat is set for 85*F(don't know the celsius), your viv will be perfectly warm. IF you have a screen top and have issues regarding excessive heat loss, drape a towel over half the top as an insulator and up the heat temps in the room the viv is being kept.
 
But as dragar has said, he has no thermometer and only 1 thermostat at the moment, so he has no idea what his temperatures inside the viv are
Click to expand...

Ah right sorry, i thought it was blanket advice against using UTH's and heat lamps together for a reason i didnt know of! :rolleyes:
 
dragar said:
welli have swapped the thermostat from the mat to the lamp seeing as i dont think that the matt would ever create enough heat on its own for sammy to get warmed up, so i thought seeing as corn snakes dont need light as much, then the light as a heat generator would be ok...

he seems fine in himself like i sed but i just wanted to make sure that he was not getting dehydrated.

how many different stages of shedding are there then?
Click to expand...

Trust me, a heat mat certainly does provide enough heat for a snake to digest its food... in fact, unregulated, they can provide enough heat to quite neatly cook a snake.

If you're not using a dimming thermostat then you're in for VERY short bulb life... light bulbs are NOT designed to be used with anything other than a dimmer stat. If you have a relatively cheap thermostat (like a 'mat stat') then it will work by turning the light on and off all the time and that CAN upset the snake.

I really would just switch off the lamp, move your heat mat UNDER the cage (not on the back) and put the thermostat probe on the floor of the cage right over the mat.
 
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