Rat Bite on Ball : I need some advice PLEASE

I have heard this happens out there in the reptile world but never would have thought it could happen to me.

To start, I never feed live prey, and most of my snakes eat frozen. That said i have a few picky eaters who need pre killed/stunned rats and need to be left alone.

To make a long story very short, i was very busy and left the rat with the snake overnight. The rat apparently was not dead and ended up eating a hole in a 700 gram female ball.

I cleaned the wound, applied neosporin to the open wound, and have her heated with high humidity. These were suggestions from a friend.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Sam

How bad is the wound?? To me that souns like a decent course of action for something not to big, but is she missing an entire chunk of her, or is it just a bite? If you had pics that would be helpful as well. What did you clean the wound with initially? Dan M.

Basically a good course of action. However, watch those humidity levels closely as bacteria breed and multiply in higher humidity. It'll be a delicate balance for a few days until you have some good scabbing over the wound without infection. Since her immune system will be down a bit here it's a good idea to just keep an extra close eye on her for signs of any trouble at all. Push the temps on the warm end of the cage to low/mid 90's and watch to see if she needs more or less. These kinds of encounters happen fairly often in the wild and we often see WC adults with scars from rodent and other animal encounters and they heal up just fine but it does take some time.

I totally just had a very bad image in my head when I read the title...



anyway the above advice is good, make sure you keep an eye on it though, and if it starts getting inflamed/oozing/whatever, you might need to take it to the vet for some prescription antibiotics. good luck!