Vets operates on red-bellied black snake injured by whipper snipper
VIDEO: A guide to giving an anaesthetic to an angry, writhing and venomous snake. Pull it from the bag. Get its head in a tube. Inject. Wait ... hope when you pull it out, it’s asleep. Central Coast vet Dr Marceus Poon shows you how.
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ANAESTHETISING a venomous snake for surgery is no easy feat — in fact it’s an extremely nerve-wrecking task.
However, when Central Coast Vet Marceus Poon heard about an injured red-bellied black snake, he was keen to help.
The 1.2m snake was rescued from a Tumbi Umbi property by Wildlife ARC head snake carer Sam Chatfield with injuries they suspect were caused by a whipper snipper.
Dr Poon scheduled the surgery and the Express Advocate was invited to witness the rare event.
Wildlife ARC Supervisor Andrew Crouch brought the snake to West Gosford Veterinary Clinic and I was debriefed about what to do in the event the snake escaped.
I was getting nervous.
When the snake was lifted from the box he was not keen for surgery and did everything in his power to escape.
He was given a needle to anaesthetise him and his upper body was placed in a cylinder to ensure no movement.
He thrashed around and fought as hard as he could.
It was then a waiting game for the snake to fall asleep.
Dr Poon said anaesthetising venomous snakes is challenging.
“Monitoring small animals under anaesthetic is easy through the mucus membrane in the mouth, however we can’t place anything in the snake’s mouth while he is awake,” he said.
“So we look for any movement.”
After 20 minutes, the snake had stopped moving and appeared to be anaesthetised.
Now came the heart stopping moment when Mr Poon had to take the snake out of the cylinder. Was it completely under? We certainly hoped so.
Mr Poon opened the snake’s mouth, his fangs just millimetres from his fingers, and placed the tube down his throat. No movement.
With that done, we breathed a sigh of relief and Mr Poon hooked the tube to the gas and started cleaning the snake’s wounds.
He said the main difference between surgery on a small animal compared to a snake is the layers of sutures.
“With snakes and reptiles we just stitch the muscle and skin,” he said.
“A snake heals a lot slower than a small mammal.
“So for the safety of the snake we use non-dissolvable sutures. However they will have to be removed while he is awake.”
The surgery was a success, taking almost three hours to clean and stitch all the wounds.
Mr Poon said if the snake survived the next two weeks, he has a good chance of full recovery and release.
He is now in the safe hands of Ms Chatfield who said he was “grumpy”, however slowly recovering and sleeping soundly under his heat lamp.
She said the plan was to nurse him back to health and release him so he can enjoy the remainder of the breeding season.