The Snake: Hatchling Trinket Rat Snake. No longer than my forearm, about as big around as a pencil.

The Story: So my friend bought a baby trinket rat last month. The store is fairly good when it comes from reptiles; I’ve not seen a sick herp in there, though other animals are poorly cared for (I think they should just carry herps as that’s all that really gets any decent care). The guy that does the herps said the trinket had eaten just a few days ago and was feeding well on live pinks, but since it was so tiny he recommended keeping up with the live pinks until it was bigger to try and switch onto frozen. It was healthy at the store, well tempered, not snappy, but squirmy and it decided to crap on my friend. Body was nicely toned and not thin.

Didn’t hear about it for weeks.

She’s moving and flying down to scope out the location and coming back in a month to pick up her stuff and some of her pets. Until them I am tending her two baby snakes – the rat and a corn. She’s leaving in two days from today.

I picked up the snakes and other critters at around ten thirty at night yesterday, brought them back here, plugged in their heat pad and didn’t look at them until today. She said she was already trying to switch it onto frozen and it hadn’t eaten anything, she didn’t say how long.

She will pick up the pets in two to three weeks so they are not mine to keep.

The Symptoms: The trinket rat feels VERY light. I mean, weightless almost. It’s very listless and somewhat unresponsive. I turn it over on it’s back to look at it’s underside and see dark splotches on it’s abdomen. They’re like dark black patches on the inside you can see through the skin – that’s the only way I can describe it. In addition to that, the snake feels like a straw. Literally, like a straw, on the underside, where there are no ribs, the snake feels empty, hollow. Like there’s nothing inside it. Not like the abdomen of a normal snake which is muscled and toned. I noted she was giving them old fish water to drink. When I said, “You’re…. Giving them fish water to drink?” she replied, “Yeah, it’s fine.” The trinket is in the same enclosure as the baby corn as they are the same size. Not by my choice, but just more info on the situation. The corn is perfectly fine it seems.

Today I scrubbed out the enclosure and put the snakes back in, and the trinket is just lying there. It seems like it could die any day now.

The Question: What should I do?

I forgot to mention when I turn it over, it weakly tries to right itself. Unsuccessfully if you hold it, not like a normal snake that will do all in its power to flip itself over, or a normal baby snake that would just freak out.

I'd soak the snake first, just to help rehydrate it. I'm not experienced with Asian ratsnakes, but it's probably dehydrated. So a soak first, then offer it a pink, see if it'll eat. Is there any way you can separate them, even if you just run to the store and get a $2 sterilite to house the trinket? It's more than likely stressed, I know that the Asian rats are a lot more skittish than our North American ratsnakes...

Soaking. It... floats... Like it's full of air.

This is kind of obvious but start giving it dechlorinated tap water or bottled water. I pre-mix my water in a old milk jug and that is 18 drops of Zoo med's Reptisafe for every gallon.

were you able to separate them? if the trinket has any sort of communicable disease, odds are it's already contaminated the corn, but separating them will at least take some of the stress off of the poor little thing...

try running a google search for trinket rat care, and see if you can find more info on how they're supposed to be housed...

Herp__Kid, all of my reptiles get bottled spring water, so the dish was scrubbed and refilled when I got them both.

begunwithaletter, yup. Now I start the calls to the vets... This might be a long day.

just makin sure because fish water can't be good for anything

Yes, a vet visit is definately due. I am so sorry for that little snake. Hopefully you can get him back on the right track. The only thing I can think of for the "dark spots": maybe internal organs? But I'm just hoping for nothing worse. I'm still a little confused about why she would give them fish water-I mean, that makes no sense to me when there is at least sink water. Anyway, that's not really the issue since you fixed that immediately. Please update us on his condition when you get him to the vet.

First off, soaking the snake isn't going to help re-hydrate it. It's not like snakes absorb water through their skin....

The dark spots you see, sad to say, are normally something you see after death when the gal bladder 'leaks'. If you're seeing them now and the snake is a lifeless as you say, I don't think you'll make it to the vet visit.

They may not absorb water directly through the skin, but a lot of hatchlings are 'dumb' enough to pass by their water dishes, but when plopped in a soak container they'll drink eagerly. It seems less stressful to soak a snake than to force its head under water to see if it will drink.

Herp__Kid, agreed.

LeoLady, ditto. I have an appt for tomorrow. The herp vet wasn't "in" before then.

CalasCorns, that really sucks. I hope that's not the case.

begunwithaletter, that was my hope also.

Just letting everyone know the little one didn’t make it to his vet appointment.

Sorry to hear that, Duel. When you said about the black spots forming and the snake being that listless, I had a feeling this would be the outcome. Make sure that you know it into your friends head that dirty nasty fishwater isn't acceptable to be giving snakes. Would she drink that water?