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Red patches = Bruising or Burn or somthing else?

Fozzy8810

Fozzy8810

New member
For the past few weeks I've moved my Opal ( October) up to small adult mice. He's taken them pretty well ( ate, sleept, been handled a 2 days after, pooped etc...). But tonight when I fed him a kinda chunky mouse with a lil gut poking out from the pack, and noticed small buldges from the mouse (i.e. where the legs or arms would be) that were seen around the trachea/ neck area, or before the widest part of the girth. So because he's alaways a lil active after he eats, he climbed around a bit before the mouse got to the settling point of the girth, climbed to the top of the tank and fell. When he moved around a bit more i noticed that he had 3 spots on his side that kinda looked like bruises... are they and should I be concerned? In addition to this first hypothesis... Its been reallly really hot in my house, so hot that I had to turn the UTHs off i his 33 gallon tank because it reached up to 88 or 90 on two occasions. Without the UTH it would be 82 on the cool side and 83 on the warm. I'm not sure if the jump to the 90 degrees made those marks or not.

Suggestions???

THANKS! XD
 
You see these patches just after feeding? Opals are kinda see through, you could be just seeing the mouse. Burns on reptiles tend to be on the belly with a UTH, unless you have a light/heat source above the tank also.
Pics if you can get them to show us would help. It would be just guesses posted without seeing what you describe. Are they raised or look swollen? Wish I could be more help.
 
If the highest temp was only 90 there wouldn't be a burn. That's not a great temperature for an adult corn, but isn't high enough to burn the snake. As long as the room temps are warm (80-ish) you can leave the UTH off for the summer. I don't use supplemental heat for most of my corns in the summer. (My husband uses my snakes as an excuse to keep the AC higher than I'd like it! :) )

Pictures would help a lot in figuring out what's going on with your snake.
 
While he had the mouse in his tummy, he landed on his water bowl. The red patches are now gone, so I t hink it was just a combo of the mouse hitting the water bowl. Also I took this pick today because I noticed a flake from the the top of his head and I wasn't sure what it was from. I'm not sure if its dehydration or if its do to a shed in the nearby future. His scale seems to shag onto me a lil more than usual and he had his last shed between May 19 and May 29th.
 

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That could just be a piece of old skin. Or he may be ready to shed and one bit is early. Keep him comfy, give him a mist, watch him without stressing him out too much. If the spot scabs; you can post pics here. Many of the members are vet techs, or they've seen everything already and they can sort you out.

I kept one corn snake for a year and I just had to get another, because I was stressing my poor anery out with constant attention. If you can afford a second snake, I'll suggest it. Keeping two isn't that much difficult; and they seem to enjoy their time better when not the object of total snake fixation. (I'm not suggesting that you are smothering your snake; but if it is possible for you to get another, by all means get another.)
 
Thanks for the advice everyone!!!!

I've been misting his tank to keep the humidity between high 40s and high 50s. I noticed another lifted flake towards the end of his tail this afternoon. Hopefully its just an early shed sign, though he's never had this problem before. Usually I can tell if he's going to shed by checking his underbelly and looking for *strawberrry* milk eyes
 
Those scales look like a soon-to-shed snake. I've had an adult who went a long while between sheds do that occasionally. Keep up the misting and don't worry.

By the way, "strawberry milk eyes" says it well for the light colored snakes!
 
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