Snake Bite Injury/ Damaged skin

Hi Guys,

A little background info first.

I have an adult red tail boa male that has been courting a female of mine. They have been housed together for almost two weeks with no incidents or noticeable aggression. Today I pulled him out and fed him a small F/T prey item to aid him through the courting/breeding period and I did the same for her. After about an hour I put them back together and left to go shopping. Upon arriving home several hours later I checked on all of my snakes and temps only to discover he had sustained a bite injury. I have no doubt this is associated with being fed and probably the smell and a mistake on my part.

The injury is on one side of his body, about 1" to 2" wide depending on how he's laying. The skin pulls back over the muscle tissue when he moves in certain directions. The tissue underneath appears to be in tact. I'm not sure if it can be sutured or needs to be.

I've pulled him out and put him in his own enclosure on paper towels and cleaned the would. I've called a few vets to see if anyone will see him but nothing can be done until the start of the week. Any advice or experience with this sort of injury would be appreciated. Thanks!

It's hard to tell from the photo...is there a "flap" of skin?

In my professional opinion, I would bring him to the vet for an evaluation. If they have enough loose skin to suture it closed, they may, but unless there is a "flap," it would likely be a complicated procedure, more of a grafting surgery, which IMO probably isn't necessary (I'm speaking as a vet tech with a lot of experience with wounds and wound healing).

If everyone decides wound closure's not a good option, these types of wounds heal by "second intention," meaning the edges of the skin don't close together, like with a laceration, but the body has to actually go through the process of producing new tissue to cover the defect. Second intention healing takes a long time and will leave a gnarly scar, but with a wound like that it may be the only option. Snakes are hard to graft because they don't have a lot of places to harvest extra skin like other animals do.

Follow you basic husbandry protocols for a "hospital" setup, and clean his wound twice daily. The vet may or may not put him on antibiotics, but even if he doesn't go to surgery that first vet visit is important so if something bad happens it is easier to get in soon for a recheck and they will know what you started with for an issue. They likely will give you something to use topically as well.

I'm sure you already figured this out, but I strongly recommend against breeding him until he is 100% healed. I wouldn't even keep him in the same room with females so that you can keep him eating and less distracted.

In all honesty, the body is amazing. If you can keep infection from setting in likely he will scar over in a couple weeks without much intervention.

Good luck to you. He's a handsome boy!

Hi, thanks for the reply skirtinthedirt. There is a flap of skin there but when he bends in that direction it pulls back. When he's lying outstretched or slightly bent it closes up completely. I have him away from the female now but he's cruising all over looking for her. He's pretty aggressive when it comes to courting and probably won't stop moving for a few days which I'm sure won't help the healing process.

Question, as far as topical antibiotics. I don't have any neosporin which I've seen some recommend as I'm allergic to it but would bacitracin be sufficient to apply to the area or are you familiar with it? Any other recommendations. Thanks!

You might want to take a look at the topic I posted titled "avulsion on a ball python". Its in the same section and the "flap of skin" is pretty much the same issue as that snake had when I first picked her up. That situation ended up getting way more complicated but the skin injury itself was fine.

The wound was older (about a week) when I first got the snake and the vet said it would heal up as an open wound just fine. He gave me a tube of silver sulfadiazine 1% and I applied it daily with great results. The cream is commonly used on burn victims but is not OTC. Since you can't find a vet for a few days you might want to ask a pharmasist for something similar that is OTC.

Bacitracin is one of the 3 ingredients in a triple antibiotic like Neosporin but is only effective on specific types of germs. Neosporin is a triple antibiotic, containing three different antibiotics -- bacitracin, neomycin, and polymyxin. It's a wide spectrum antibiotic, and it's what you use when you don't know what bacteria you're defending against.

I would recommend getting some disposable gloves or just using a Q-tip to apply Neosporin since there is no way to know what kind of germs you're fighting against. Skirtinthedirt is 100% right in saying the body is amazing and snakes are seriously tough little guys. Best wishes

IMO, you don't need to use neosporin, especially if you are allergic to it. Because the wound is not currently (I assume) infected you don't technically NEED an antibiotic cream. Triple antibiotic is more broad spectrum than bacitracin or other single ingredient creams, but is not so broad spectrum that it there is a significant advantage to using it in place of other things. Besides, like Kim said, neosporin is composed of 3 different antibiotics, one of which is bacitracin. If you don't know which component of neopsporin you are allergic to, you could have a reaction to plain bacitracin as well.

What will really help you out until the vet appt is cleaning the wound twice daily with Betadine (cheap and OTC), diluted about 50/50 with water, allowing for 15 mins of "contact time" with the solution. No need to rinse off. Betadine kills a lot of nasty bugs that something like triple antibiotic cream won't touch.

Silver Sulfadiazine is a GREAT med also.

Hey thanks for the reply's thus far.

I havn't used any neosporin yet. It's the neomycin that I'm allergic too. I did purchase some Betadine solution and applied it diluted 50/50 with water. He doesn't seem to like it as it probably stings a bit when applied but I know it's great to use.

The flap of skin has rolled up and is staying that way so I'm not sure it will be able to be sutured when I take him in. I did read the topic on "avulsion on a ball python" by the way.

As for the Silver Sulfadiazine, I tried to get some today or an equivalent but as it's not OTC I was turned away. I did come accross a product called New-Skin Liquid Bandage but I'm not sure if I should apply it or if anyone has tried it on reptiles. Let me know if you have any experience. I'm going to try to get him in to the vet tomorrow.

NO LIQUID SKIN!!! It's basically superglue for lacerations. It is not for this type of injury. Also, it burns like hell.

Any updates?