UH OH Foil Tape - Mineral oil did the trick!

[HIGHMAINTENANCE]

So I learned a scary lesson and unfortunately I was in too much of a hurry that I did not take photos to accompany this story, but here it goes...

I go into Columbus' room today and notice that his cage is completely trashed! Like bowls turned over, hides turned over - all his paper towels russled into a corner, I think "Man you had a party in here last night, so I start cleaning things up and I lift his hide he is in to take him out while I rearrange his cage and notice he has a 1 1/2 inch long strip of foil tape attached to his neck, face and eye!!!!!!

I begin to freak out - because I see that he has been trying to get it off and is about to rip his eye out!! So I email JGlass38 (Jamie - THANK YOU) ask him what to do, while I am soaking him in a warm bowl of water trying to get it off and NOTHING! - Oh yea I did GET PEED ALL OVER!!!!

But the tape was not budging! So I call my vet I had all picked out for an event like this and ofcourse it is that vets day off!!!! So I start to panic and call (BP's Rocks - Mike THANK YOU) cuz he lives here in Denver and ask him where I need to go since my vet is off! In the meantime I find Arapahoe Vet in Boulder will take him immediately - so I grab him rush down there and WALLAAAA they get it off in about 2 minutes with mineral oil and NO HARM TO columbus BREATH.

So I was using foil tape to tape down his probe and he wedged his head under it for some reason- but little did I know I should tape his probe to the outside of his new AP cage In his sweater box I had it on the outside, but with his new AP cage I did not think it work on the outside the way I needed it to due to the thickness of the cage!! Anyways! FOIL TAPE IS OUT!!!

Gotta tell ya - made me feel so helpless not knowing how to get the tape off him without hurting him!!! WHEEWWWW

[JLC]

VERY glad to hear that everything worked out for the best! Tape inside snake cages equals bad stuff happening!

[jglass38]

So glad it worked out Cara! I hadn't even thought of mineral oil. I have seen snakes lose scales after have mineral oil applied to them (I think they were told to use it to kill mites). Anyway, I am glad all is well!

[snakedude56]

I know how you feel, Honey got some duct tape stuck to her a while back and I thought she was gonna be scarred for life. I got the tape off her and now she is just fine like it never even happened. Glad to here he's ok.

[recycling goddess]

as i'm reading this i'm thinking... oh ya i know you never use tape inside a snake enclosure and then i realized... i taped an extra UTH on the side of my ball's enclosure to up the temps - OMG running off now to remove the tape!

*whew* thanks for sharing this so i didn't end up with the same problem!

[HIGHMAINTENANCE]

So glad it worked out Cara! I hadn't even thought of mineral oil. I have seen snakes lose scales after have mineral oil applied to them (I think they were told to use it to kill mites). Anyway, I am glad all is well!

Ikes well hopefully it all ends up ok, the vet said the only adverse effect could be if they got mineral oil in their lungs, but said he did it very quickly and there should be no problems. He is upstairs in his cage with no tape and all snuggled into his hide!!!

Thanks again Jamie - you rock!

[HIGHMAINTENANCE]

snakedude56 and recycling goddess - thank you and yes i posted this so that hopefully someone else does not experience the same problem - because it scared me so bad

[jotay]

Glad everything worked out. I know that had to be terrifying.
The mineral oil sounds like a neat trick.
I know my vet says to use it if you ever have retained eyecaps after a shed.

I have a AP cage but I use bark as a substrate so I just lay my probe on the floor over the heat cable and cover it w/ bark. Seems to do the trick.

[jglass38]

Glad everything worked out. I know that had to be terrifying.
The mineral oil sounds like a neat trick.
I know my vet says to use it if you ever have retained eyecaps after a shed.

I have a AP cage but I use bark as a substrate so I just lay my probe on the floor over the heat cable and cover it w/ bark. Seems to do the trick.

Extremely dangerous. When your snake dislodges the tstat probe (and its a when, not if) the heat cable will spike to over 140 degrees and could kill or seriously burn your snake.

[Kizerk]

i'm glad your snake is ok....

are all kinds of tape unsafe? cos if i remove the tape, i'm unable to keep the thermostat probe on the ground, and that will cause the temps to rise...