Please help. Sudden injury to scales on my snake's neck!

[guidofatherof5]

Another good med. for this kind of issue is Silver Sulfadiazine.
I got a prescription from my Vet. and had it filled at Sam's Club $4.00

[chris-uk]

Looks like a good general antimicrobial Steve. Silver is a great antimicrobial agent coupled with sulfide it should be pretty effective.

[xStatic]

Thank you everyone! I applied a general antibiotic ointment to the wound today. It doesn't look much better than it did yesterday, but it also doesn't seem to have gotten any worse. She's still active and there are no signs of infection. I'm not as worried as I was before. I wish I knew what could have caused this though. Any wild guesses anyone? I'm going to look into the betadine solution mentioned! Thank you all once again I really appreciate it!

[guidofatherof5]

It may take a couple shed cycles for this to clear up and look normal again.
I had a male albino checkered(T.marcianus) with the same problem in the same general area.
I treated it with the Silver Sulfadiazine and it cleared up but took awhile.
Still don't know the cause but it has never returned.

[Charis]

I started watching both your threads because the Albino Checkered that my boyfriend got recently had pretty much the same thing. We didn't notice until a few hours after he bought him. There were four scales affected, one high up on his neck and the rest further down. Had thought maybe he had been kept on too damp substrate but that is just the best guess I had. All but two have disappeared and the other two look much better now, about four weeks later. He also just went thru a three week feeding strike. Ate a few days after being bought, then refused for three weeks and just finally ate again yesterday. I'm also interested if anyone knows what causes that, since damp substrate apparently wasn't at fault for xStatic's snake.

[xStatic]

hmm interesting. Two other albino checkered with similar issues. I wonder has anyone else run across something like this? My first thought was scale rot, but I had just changed out her entire cage 2 days earlier and I know she hadn't been on any too damp substrate long enough to damage her scales. I have a friend who is a professional piercer and he said he would sell me a small amount of betadine for my snake (it's often used to prep skin for a piercing). I will also look into the Silver Sulfadiazine. I don't want to overwhelm her with too many medications though. Also, will she be harmed by the betadine because of her very small size? How do I prevent her from drinking it?

She didn't eat today either but she showed a tiny bit of interest in some bloody minced earthworms I offered. I hope this is a good sign.

Two other garter owners told me that while they have had adults and subadult garter go off of food during season changes, they have never had very young snakes go on hunger strikes. Have people on here experienced really young garters going off food as a result of seasonal changes? At what point should I start to worry about starvation? She seems very active still.

On a side note she keeps getting up on the rim of her tank under the screen (she likes to crawl laps along this inner lip) and since I took all the aspen out she now has nothing to cushion her numerous falls to the ground below. Should I worry about this? I don't think I can stop her climbing she does it constantly... Should I look into getting some carefresh or something for her tank instead of aspen?

Am I worrying way too much? lol thank you

[guidofatherof5]

The falling shouldn't be a problem.
You can solve the climbing problem by cutting some small triangles out of cardboard that fit into the corner of the lip.
Hot glue them in. This of course only work if your snake is gaining access to the lip at the corner of the aquarium.
It works very well. It's also good to use if you have to run a cord out of aquarium.
Effectively stopping them from climbing up the cord and getting out.

[EasternGirl]

My Eastern, Selena, did not eat for months after I first found her...she was very young...probably just a few months old, if that. It was November when I found her...could have been a seasonal thing...but was probably more likely due to the stress of getting used to captivity. She often goes a month here and there with out eating. My bigger girl, Cee Cee, also an Eastern...went a couple months without eating recently. I'm not actually sure how old Cee Cee is. Garters can go months with out eating though. You just have to watch for signs of inactivity, or the snake looking like it is losing a significant amount of weight...or any other symptoms that suggest the snake is not feeling well. As long as the snake is active, they can go a while without food.