Devastated

[moses]

I feel terrible, my snake was nibbled on by a hopper! I feel like a prent who let their child down. What makes it worse is that I was too busy to notice for a few days. The story is I put a live hopper in with her and left it for 24 hrs, overnight. I had not noticed she was going into a shed , I feel like an idiot. she seems ok, but one of the bites was rigt down to the meat, and the others look fairly superficial. She seems o be ok, is in my hand now. I put some polysporing on the bites, read that it was ok to do that. I know snakes are tough, but what else should I do? I feel like ******

[Pinkie]

You poor thing and poor snake
.... I have been in a lot of similar situations like this with animals I get in through Wires. When something happens and you don't realise at first then later figure out why and that you could have prevented it - you feel like poo.
But it does happen to the best of us... even the most experienced people I know get into situations similar to yours.
"Everyone makes mistakes" (do you remember this from sesame street? )

I would take the snake for a checkup with a vet who is familiar with reptiles, as there is always a chance that bites can become infected, especially if it was left for awhile without you noticing.

[sarahbell]

hope evrything is all right and dont beat your self up over it as pinkie said everyone makes mistakes

[stretch]

I agree with Pinkie. It does not matter your experience level or circumstance, stuff happens to everyone!

I no longer feed my beardies in their enclosure. A cricket was obviously missed to start with and decided to chew on one of my bearies tails...

Not a good thing!! Lots of salt baths for the little dear.

I would take your snake to get it checked out. The wounds could lead to infection and take it from me, you do not want to muck around with infections. Reptiles are slow to heal and if an infection takes hold you may not beat it.

[grahamh]

Hi Moses

just can't trust mice I guess. I've never used Polysporing but I assume its an antisceptic/antibiotic. I managed to injur an adult Diamond python when cutting grass around one of my sheds. I caught it with the string of a brush cutter. I caught the snake and poured Betadene solution over it and then released it. Ive seen the same snake since (2 years later) she still sports a scar but the wound healed fully. I guess as time goes by her sheddings will eventually reduce the scar. The main thing with a mouse bite would be anti biotic cream at the least. If you're concerned you should take it to a decent Herp vet.

Good luck

[almaron]

Betadine (ie 10% povidone iodine) or equivalent is the way to go. Like Stretchy said, you don't want to risk infection. It can lead to nasty problems like abscesses, and even death. If like you said it's superficial, don't sweat it too much, but if it's deep, or you're unsure, take your him to the vet. Don't be too hard on yourself, but learn from it so you don't make same mistake again.

As long as the subject of crickets was brought up, I had a cricket tear the hell out of a praying mantis one time. Chewed it's legs right off. The mantis did not survive. Live and learn I guess.

[africancichlidau]

Don't beat yaself up over it Moses, we learn from our mistakes. I would reccomend getting your animals onto frozen mice/rats though as there are lots of stories out there very similar to yours. Good luck with the unfortunate one.

[moses]

THanks for the advice and concern. She seems ok so far, have been watching her constantly since I discovered.