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Silken is a 27 year old, 15 pound Boa Constrictor
who presented to us last month for bite wounds. Silken, like most
boas, is fed using live rats. Many boas will not eat dead prey and
so one must offer live food if they are to thrive. As the size of
the snake increases, the size of the prey increases from baby mice, to
juvenile mice, to adult mice, then on to varying sized rats. In
Silken's case, an adult rat was placed in her cage in the morning
by the owner. When he returned, 3 hours later, instead of finding
a satiated Silken, he found the Rat running around the cage and Silken
coiled up in the corner of the enclosure with multiple deep bite
wounds all over her body! He quickly removed the rat and brought
Silken in for treatment.
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| Here is a view of the
bite wounds and the exposed bone and connective tissue. |
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On presentation, Silken was depressed and less active than
normal. We found 8 different wounds of varying depth along
her entire back. Some of the lesions were over 1.5 inches deep.
With wounds as severe as these, our only option was to repair
them surgically. We discussed the risks with the owner and
decided to go ahead with surgical repair. We started
Silken on injectable antibiotics and administered fluids into
her abdominal cavity to help prevent dehydration. We
anesthetized Silken with isoflourane gas and began to clean up
and suture the wounds. Snake skin is very slow to heal and
doesn't fully heal until the snake goes through 1 or more shed
cycles. As a result, we sewed up the wounds using
stainless steel sutures which can be left in place for a long
time (about 1 month in this case). To enhance
the speed of the wound healing, we treated Silken's wounds with
a
therapeutic cold laser
every other day for 4 treatments.
We administered pain
medication and allowed Silken to recover in an incubator.
When we discussed Silken's
housing situation, we found that the enclosure had been kept
colder than the optimal temperature for this species.
Being a cold-blooded snake, Silken relies on external sources of
heat to stay warm. With many reptiles, one of the main
reasons they get sick is related to not providing adequate
external heat support. The warmer they are (up to a point) the
more efficient their immune systems can operate. It is
probable that Silken's metabolism had slowed down due to the
cold spring weather and she was not strong enough to kill the
rat. With her unable to effectively defend herself, the
rat was able to reverse the tables and use her for his dinner.
Upon returning home, the
owner had corrected the temperature of the enclosure to aid in
her recovery. We kept her on antibiotics for 2 weeks by
injection and at last check-up the wounds were looking very well
healed.
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| Anesthetized snake |
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| Post Op wounds sutured,
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| Post surgery |
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| 2 week checkup, notice the eyes are turning
cloudy as the prelude to shedding |
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| 2 weeks post op, the wounds look good. |
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| 2 weeks post op healing wounds. |
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