I just picked up a ten year old red tail boa for my reptile rescue, Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary. She is a very beautiful specimen who seems very healthy despite appearing underfed. There is one problem I noticed right away though.

One of her eyes is completely fogged over, I'd say even more so than when a boa sheds. Is this the sign of a disease? Could she be contageous? Or is it more likely a sign of old age giving her problems with eye site?

Thanks to all the experts out there who answer this one!

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Jesse Rothacker
Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary
www.forgottenfriend.org
"Find out how YOU can get involved in reptile rescue . . .

It could be a number of things. Retained eyecaps from previous sheds, cataracts or possibly even blind from some previous damage. Does the snake give any indictation of being able to see movement out of that eye?
I am not aware of anythng contagious that would cause the eye to appear as you describe. Can you post a picture of it?

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

All I can do is say what Merlin has already said....We got a king snake who's eye was just like what you are describing....he too was also under weight. So we fed him up and then he shed, very badly I might add, then with his next shed all the skin came off in one go so I decided to have a go at his eye as I knew that he had by now two retain eye caps on....and sure enough I removed about 6 retained eye caps..

So my advice would be to up the humidity quite a bit when you notice your boa going in to shed...then check the shed skin for both eye caps, if there is only one then the chances are that the problem is with retaining the eye caps...in which case try to remove them with a wet Q-tip or the like...but remember be gentle and patient,

Hope this helps

Joe

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I'll think of something to put here soon.......

Thanks for the advice guys. Got my boa checked out by a vet and it turns out it wasn't a retained eye cap or an eye infection, as most of us guessed.

As it turns out the vet said whatever it was that made her eye all fuzzy was now long gone. It probably got infected a long time ago, causing blindness in that eye. But the good news, the doc said, is that the infection has long since run its course and the snake is healthy in every other way, and can see fine from the other eye.

And since I only feed my snakes frozen-thawed, she doesn't have to worry about taking a rat bite because of her impared eyesite. So all in all, being underweight and blind in one eye is certainly not ideal, but she could have been a lot worse for a rescue boa.

__________________
Jesse Rothacker
Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary
www.forgottenfriend.org
"Find out how YOU can get involved in reptile rescue . . .