How to Know if a Pet Snake is Ill

Snakes, like most animals, will instinctively hide an illness to avoid becoming vulnerable to predators. Furthermore, snakes lack the expressiveness of mammalian pets that allow the pet owner to tell if an illness is present. However, by becoming familiar with your pet snake and learning the common signs of illness, you can recognize common snake maladies and seek treatment before serious problems develop.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

General Guidelines for Snake Health

1. Maintain an awareness of the snake’s typical feeding habits and behavior. Observe it everyday to ensure no unusual changes have occurred. Sick snakes might hide for extended periods or refuse to eat.

2. Schedule an annual check-up with a veterinarian who specializes in herpetology. Sick snakes often exhibit sub-clinical disease undetectable to the owner in the early stages. Veterinarians can detect illness in snakes before visible symptoms develop.

3. Write down as many details of the snake’s environment, history, and nutritional habits as you can. The veterinarian will want to know what the snake eats and when, what kind of materials are included in the enclosure, when the most recent shedding cycle was and any details about the origin of the snake that are available.

Specific Signs of Snake Illness

4. Observe the snake’s shedding habits. Incomplete shedding cycles can be a signal that a snake is suffering from an illness. Healthy snakes typically shed their skins as one whole piece. Sick snakes often shed their skin in pieces.

5. Offer different food to snakes that have refused to eat. If a snake is refusing its normal prey for more than two weeks, disease may be suspected.

6. Inspect the mouth of the snake closely at least once a week. Mouth rot, a common disease among captive snakes, typically presents with signs of saliva bubbling or small areas of blood. Bubbles around the mouth can also be a sign of a respiratory infection.

7. Scan the body of the pet snake once or twice a week for signs of abscesses and blister disease. Abscesses may be caused when injuries are inflicted by live prey. Blister disease is the result of improper enclosure hygiene. Any abrasions or discharge should be brought to the attention of a veterinarian.

8. Examine the eyes of the pet snake for signs of infection or incomplete shedding. Eyes should appear translucent one to two weeks after the shedding cycle is complete. Skin retained over the eyes for longer than two weeks will have to be removed by a veterinarian, to avoid the eye cap harboring infectious agents.

Tips & Warnings

• Be aware of the diseases that most commonly affect the species of snake you keep. For example, boa constrictors and pythons commonly suffer from parasitic infections from amebiasis. Boa constrictors are also more likely to suffer from cancer than other types of snakes.