Lesion and discolouration

[lutzd]

Hi.

I'm hoping someone can help me with a problem with one of my macs I discovered last night.

She shares an enclosure with another (same age and size), but the other one doesn't have the problem at all.

Her belly has a lot of red patches, which look like subcutaneous bleeding, and she also has a lesion which worries me. It had a loose, dry scab, which came off easily, to which I applied Betadine.

Has anybody seen anything like this? I suspect a trip to the vet might be in order, but I was hoping that someone might recognise it.

Photos are in : http://www.aussiepythons.com/modules...view_album.php

This is the same mac who had a very small, partial shed about a month ago. She went the normal bluish tinge, but then went back to normal, as though she had re-absorbed her shedding fluid. She had white patches that looked like loose skin, so on advice from other members I soaked her in a wet pillowcase and manually removed the skin for her. It came off fairly easily. I'm wondering now whether removing the skin manually like that might have been the wrong thing to do. :-(

Thanks in advance. :-(

[instar]

Ew, dosent look good Dave, I hope its not to serious and responds quickly to treatment. Scalerot???
Let us know how it goes eh. Good luck.

Maybe a peice of the skin wasnt ready, and got infected? Impossible to keep an enclosure sterile.

[AGAMIDAE]

David what else is in the enclosure...decor ect...it looks like something I had awhile ago ...with a water python...I discovered that the whole leading inside my hide box was too high and the snake constently moving in and out bent bach her scales with turned into small infections..maybe you have something like this...other eg, rough logs, rocks or other in cage decor..

[lutzd]

Well, there is a piece of driftwood there, but that's about the only sharp thing. I've taken it out. Have also disinfected the heat rocks and replaced the breeders choice with marine carpet. There's nothing left that is sharp. Confusing thing is that there is another mac in the same enclosure, but he's fine. :-( I dunno. :-( I sent an email off to birdoc : Ross Perry is at Homebush animal hospital 195 Parramatta Rd Homebush - He said he would hae a look at the photos after his surgery today.

If there's no improvement by Tuesday, I'll take her to him to have a look. :-(

[AGAMIDAE]

it probably just a small bacterial infection....the doc will fix that

[lutzd]

Funny that - that's what the vet said! :-) I've booked in for next Tuesday, the next time e his in the surgery. Will post the results. Thanks for the advice.

[serpenttongue]

G'day Lutzd,

It looks like the beginnings of scalerot. Scale rot on the belly usually occurs when the snake is constantly laying on a dirty substrate. It can also occur when the cage floor isnt heated in any way and the snakes sole heat source is a globe from above.

It could also be burns from sitting on hotrocks. Hotrocks are infamous for causing burns to the underside of herps. The bellies of snakes are insensitive to detecting high temps and they can be sitting on something thats slowly burning them and not even know it.

Either way, it doesnt look too bad, and will get better with each shed.

[lutzd]

What do you think about creating a section for Herp Health, where we list information and/or photos of problems encountered with our snakes? I know I would have found it useful to be able look up the symptoms of my latest snake drama. Or is there a known, good web site that has all this information. Fuscus? Have you come across anything like this?

[Fuscus]

I think a heatlh forum a good idea Lutzd. The only site for reptile health I can think of is http://www.anapsid.org/mainhealth.html

If we do it we will need sticky moderated threads on common questions else it would just fill up with common questions, i.e. not-eating;