Eye injury in newborn snake

I just had one of my rosies give birth to a surprise litter last night. All look to be somewhat premature. One seems to have had its eye "dislocated". This definitely looks to be a traumatic injury rather than a birth defect.

I put it in a warm enclosure on moist paper towels and the eye is mostly back in the socket now. The eye is cloudy, swollen, and the pupil is completely dilated. I'm not terribly optimistic about its longterm survival and best case scenario its eye will probably be nonfunctional.

But, is there anything available over the counter that would be safe to apply to the eye that might better the odds? Maybe something that would reduce swelling and prevent infection?

I've read that some BCI breeders keep ophthalmic ointment on hand because albino babies can have issues with eye swelling.

I'm afraid I don't know anything you could apply to the eye - but if you think it's been injured it might be best to have a vet remove it. Snakes can get by very well with only one eye, and it would remove the risk of infection that you run leaving a damaged eye in place.

Thanks all. I have some ophthalmic ointment that I’m going to try. This is a day old snake born prematurely, I don’t think it could handle the trauma of surgery or much handling. If it makes it to the point where it’s well enough to eat etc. and the eye is still a problem, I’ll re-assess.

It’s a really small snake ~8” and the eyes are only 2mm at most.

Well, good luck with the ointment - please post how it goes, really hoping for the best.

The important thing is to keep it clean to avoid infection. Make sure you are using paper towels as substrate so nothing gets in there. As others have said, if the animal survives, it will do fine with only one functional eye. I had a ratsnake who was born with a deformed eye, and probably could not see out of it. He had no problems at all.