Illness & Disease - What causes stomatitis A.K.A. "Mouthrot"?

Mouthrot is almost always caused by improper husbandry and is VERY rarely a primary disease. 99% of the time, stomatitis is a sign that you are failing your animal! Anything that leads to a depressed immune system will cause stomatitis - there are four that come to mind immediately:

• Temperature lower than 90F or lack of good thermal gradient
• Trauma from too small a cage or from feeding on live prey items
• Filthy environment or improperly disinfected enclosure
• Poor Nutrition

All of these are easily corrected but unfortunately - once stomatitis begins, veterinary involvement must ensue or the infection progresses to a systemic level.

Since stomatitis is an infection by microorganisms, having an infected snake makes it easier to pass to other stressed animals who are housed in close proximity using simmilar husbandry and poor techniques. However, the microorganisms responsible for these infectious are usually oportunistic comensals (normally lives on the snake without causing harm). The poor conditions or husbandry techniques lead to a depressed immune system. Since snakes are ectotherms they depend on the temperature of their environment to regulate healthy function of systems like their immune system. That's why you could probably get away with one of the other mistakes and still not develop stomatitis.

Treatment:

The primary treatment will be correcting the husbandry, but veterinary involvement is very wise because there can be many different agents to consider when crafting a treatment plan. Antibiotics are indicated and owners will likely be asked to wash the snake's mouth daily with iodine, peroxide, antibiotics, or a combination of all three. This is stressful for both owner and snake and therefore stomatitis should be avoided through adoption of proper husbandry techniques.

Cages should be large enough for the snakes and provide a constant thermal gradient from 90F to 75F. If multiple snakes are housed in the same cage, there should be pleanty of hiding places as well as enough room for each snake so that they are not stressed. Any snakes with stomatitis who feed on live prey should be permanantly switched to pre-killed or frozen/thawed to prevent trauma. Attempts should be made to remove unnecessary stresses from the snake's lives, handling should be done gently, and overhandling should be avoided. Exposure to toxins and waste material needs to be evaluated. If you don't consistently have time to clean a cage the minute you notice it's soiled - another cage should be employed so at least you can transfer them to that one imediately.

Hopefully, the info provided through this website will change the husbandry enough that we don't have to see this disease in any of our collections!