Skin Improving after Parasite-related Dermatitis! (with pics)

[guidofatherof5]

Today's update: She's definitely getting ready to shed. Her face has started to go blue, and I'd expect her eyes to go within the next day or so. The skin on her back looks drier, but more connected; like it's getting ready to come off all at once like a proper shed.

One interesting thing though. When I was cleaning out her tub today, I noticed a very strange looking 'poo'. It was grey/green and very dense compared to normal. Also, it was formed into two solid lumps. Should have snapped a picture, but I had her out and there was no camera handy. My first thought was that they were slugs, but I figure that's not very likely in a two year old that's never mated?
My theory is that maybe her body is removing a lot more nutrients from the food than normal. She did essentially manufacture an entire outer skin in the span of a few days, so I guess that could be a possibility? Regardless, if anything starts looking bad I have access to a good exotics vet.

She's still acting normal, but I'm expecting that this will probably be an assist-shed. By the looks of things though, it should be less traumatic than the last one. I didn't realize at the time, but the degradation of her skin had already begun, so instead of being able to get the shed started and go from there, I had to remove the shed from each scale individually; took almost three days.
I really need to find the links and put this whole saga into one thread...

They produce eggs whether they've mated or not. A 2 year old is very capable of producing ova (got it right this time Stefan)

[d_virginiana]

They produce eggs whether they've mated or not. A 2 year old is very capable of producing ova (got it right this time Stefan)

Interesting. I bet that's what it was then...

Would she be able to successfully mate later in the season then? I'm going to put them together as soon as she sheds regardless, but I would like to get a litter from them in the late summer (and he's made it very clear that the will is there on his part at least).

[ConcinusMan]

Interesting. I bet that's what it was then...

I don't think so. By your description it just sounds like normal poop to me. Unfertilized eggs just look like a lump of yolk and it dries hard like yolk because that's what it is. And yeah rumor has it they can drop a load of slugs whether they have mated or not but none of my snakes have ever done that. Not even the female I had for 20 years. She had 3 litters but never just a load of slugs in between mating years/litters. Only time I've ever seen slugs is just one or two with a litter of babies.

Snakes produce eggs mostly by converting body mass reserves and she has plenty of that it appears. I think as long as she heals completely it probably wouldn't hurt a thing to brumate her this winter and breed her in the spring.

So did you just have to give her an oral anti-parasitic course or what? I would think that if it was hookworm (that's the usual nematode that causes dermatitis in people) that you and/or other exposed people would also be carrying them as well as the immediate environment in which case you could easily just keep re-infecting.

In any case snake skin takes quite a bit of time to get back to normal once the culprit is gone. Next shed she could be totally back to normal.

EDIT: somehow missed an entire page of updates before I posted that ^^^.

T
As far as weight goes, she's still eating like crazy and has actually gained weight since this started.

They'll do that. Many people think they eat a lot when they're preggo to feed the babies when in reality the babies have their own food supply already. The reason she's eating (and gaining) so much now is to replenish her own reserves which were spent producing those eggs. So by all means let her pound the food and build back up so she can make more eggs and you can breed her next time.

[d_virginiana]

So did you just have to give her an oral anti-parasitic course or what? I would think that if it was hookworm (that's the usual nematode that causes dermatitis in people) that you and/or other exposed people would also be carrying them as well as the immediate environment in which case you could easily just keep re-infecting.

In any case snake skin takes quite a bit of time to get back to normal once the culprit is gone. Next shed she could be totally back to normal.

EDIT: somehow missed an entire page of updates before I posted that ^^^.

Yeah, we gave her an oral antiparasitic course. I believe the parasites may have come from some mice we had been buying from a local petstore. I stopped feeding them shortly after she got sick because I got some that had clearly not been properly frozen. I don't think they were freezing them long enough to kill all parasites. It'd make sense too, since Houdini doesn't eat a lot of mice (he prefers fish) and the baby was only getting legs/tails at the time, so Harley was the only one actually eating those mice whole and getting the gut contents.