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Mouth hanging open?

Jrgh17

Jrgh17

Are we there yet?
As I was checking on Spencer today, I realized that he doesn't seem to want to close his mouth. At first I thought he was having a grumpy day or was just ready to consider my hand as food, but when I went back to check on him later (keeping my distance), I noticed he still didn't seem to close his mouth all the way. I didn't see anything in his mouth, but I don't really have the energy to do a really good check right now. I also will get some pics, if I can.

Does anyone have ideas as to what this could be?
 
Sounds like a Respiratory Infection to me. Get him to a herp vet, asap. They can be deadly if not treated.
 
How do you know? To me, mouth open means he can't breathe through his nose. I'm sorry you don't have the energy to deal with a sick snake.

Edit: This wasn't meant to sound critical at all. I'm sorry if it came out that way. I wanted to know how, as an experienced keeper who would recognize a RI, you ruled it out. Now I know!
 
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No noisy breathing, no mucous. It's not just that the mouth is open, it's almost distorted.
 
I agree with Jen. Lets not panic until we have an idea. Use your finger and pull his lower jaw down and let it go. See if he'll pull it shut. He may just need a good yawn to straighten things out.
 
I know what you mean by distorted. Sniper had his mouth cockeyed for a good hour, until he stretched it out. Not too sure what caused it, but i would assume a yawn gone wrong or a drink of water gone awry. It looked almost broken, but not...you know what i mean?
 
From my limited experience with Butter's RI, the mouth breathing started well before any other symptom. I'm not suggesting you rush him to a vet right now, but do keep an eye on him. Elsewhere, I posted that since his RI, Butterboy seems to be sensitive to irritants like dust. Even the cleanest aspen I could find had a little, and we caught him mouth breathing one day. Moved him back to paper towels, and he's not done it since. We're also careful about air fresheners and other aerosols around him.

Keep an eye on yours and let us know how it goes. Sorry you're tired.
 
I peeked in on him when I woke up this morning, and his face was swollen on the left side to about 3 times it's normal size. It literally looked like he had shoved a marble into his mouth. I was really freaked out, so one of my friends agreed to take him to the animal hospital. We discovered a couple interesting things:

1) Spencer is A LOT older than I originally was told. I thought he was 15, which is pretty old by our standards, but he's probably at least 20, because...
2) Spencer has snakey osteoporosis. Yup, he's losing bone density. And that caused...
3) Him to break his jaw. We're all just guessing here, but he may have been randomly striking at something (even his last meal - he still has a good feeding response with f/t), and it broke due to the low bone density. The doctor had to reset his jaw, then do more x-rays to check. Total time at the vet was almost 3 hours.

So Spencer doesn't get any meals for 6 weeks MINIMUM (poor baby), and needs regular calcium supplements. Because I obviously can't pill him while he's recovering, he's going to get a calcium-powder paste injected in the side of his mouth with a plastic syringe. After that, I'm going to start pumping his mice with extra calcium.

The swelling is almost entirely down now. I bumped up his hotspot a couple degrees too. I figured he might enjoy a little extra warmth, and he has his head directly on the heater. He doesn't seem to have problems drinking, so that's huge relief. Problems swallowing would've led to a whole new set of problems.
 
Geez, Jenni, that must have been heart-wrenching! Sounds like you have an awesome herp vet. Hope your little bud pulls through ok. *hugs*
 
Poor guy. I'm glad you found out what was wrong with him. I had a nightmare about him last night!!! Will it just stay aligned now?
 
Good luck with his jaw! Poor guy, must have been painful. I'm glad you got him to a vet and have ways to get him better now.
 
Thanks guys.

Nanci said:
Will it just stay aligned now?
Click to expand...

That's the hope. As long as he keeps it fairly stable, which is what you'd expect as long as he's not moving it much (not eating), and while he's in pain. The only problem is IF his jaw will be able to fuse back together (and how long it'll take). He may need 'pinkie milkshakes' if it's going to be awhile, and I'm not sure what'll happen if he is never able to eat solid food again.
 
Well, I have an adult corn that thrives on rat pinks, (only three per meal!) so maybe even just reducing the prey size might help. They would certainly be a lot easier to swallow.

Will he re-x-ray it to determine if it has healed? I am so thankful I work in radiology so I can x-ray my animals whenever I need to, at no cost.
 
Nanci said:
Well, I have an adult corn that thrives on rat pinks, (only three per meal!) so maybe even just reducing the prey size might help. They would certainly be a lot easier to swallow.

Will he re-x-ray it to determine if it has healed? I am so thankful I work in radiology so I can x-ray my animals whenever I need to, at no cost.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we're X-raying again in 6 weeks to check on the mouth itself, and then also to see if adding extra calcium improves his bone density at all. He's probably going to start out on pinkies again (blast from the past, eh?) and slowly move up prey sizes.

When I worked in one of the bio labs here, a lot of people did their own gels or cultures on their animals. Our lab supervisor pretty much looked the other way as long as we lumped our tests in with a group of 'legit' samples.
 
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