Baskden a warm den for reptile folk

🩺 Your free vet-prep sheet

Your Rat Snake Vet-Prep Sheet

Reptile vets are rare, and it is easy to freeze in a crisis. This is the one page to have ready — how to find a vet, what to bring, what to tell them, and the questions to ask. This helps you prepare for a visit — it is not a way to treat at home. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

Black & white saves ink and prints cleanly on any printer.

Not sure it’s a vet trip yet? Try the Is this normal? triage first — many worries turn out to be a husbandry fix.

Baskden a warm den for reptile folk · baskden.com
Rat Snake — Vet-Prep Sheet

🔍 Find a reptile / exotics vet — before you need one

  • Search the ARAV Find-a-Vet directory (the Association of Reptilian & Amphibian Veterinarians), or in the UK the RCVS Find-a-Vet — or search "reptile / exotics vet near me".
  • Call ahead and ask the key question: "Do you see reptiles?" Not every practice does.
  • Ask the exam fee when you call. Knowing the cost up front removes the money-panic in a crisis.
  • Find and save one now, while things are calm — not in the middle of an emergency.

📇 Fill this in now — before the crisis

Two minutes now saves ten in a panic. Print it and keep it with your care notes.

My reptile vet
My rat snake
What I'm seeing

🚨 Is this an emergency now?

See a reptile vet promptly if you notice any of these:

  • Open-mouth breathing, wheezing, clicking or gurgling sounds, or bubbles/mucus around the mouth or nostrils — possible respiratory infection; see an exotics vet promptly.
  • Redness, swelling, cheesy discharge, or pinpoint bleeding around the mouth/gums — possible mouth rot (infectious stomatitis); needs a vet.
  • Repeated incomplete sheds or retained eye caps (spectacles) — often a humidity/husbandry issue that can trap infection; get it addressed.
  • Tiny moving black or red dots on the snake or in the water bowl — snake mites; treat and see a vet if it persists.
  • Prolonged refusal to eat with weight loss, lethargy, or a visibly thinning body — have an exotics vet rule out illness before assuming it's seasonal.

When in doubt, a vet call is never wrong — most issues are reversible if caught early.

🚗 On the way / while you wait

✅ Do

  • Keep it warm at a safe transport temperature — a cold reptile crashes fast (a warm car or a covered container with a warm, not hot, pack helps).
  • Keep it calm, dark and quiet in a secure, ventilated container — stress makes almost everything worse.
  • Bring it in its own container so the vet sees it as it lives.

⛔ Don't

  • Don’t offer food, or any OTC, aquarium-shop or online-forum remedy — many are useless or harmful and can mask the signs.
  • Don’t let it get cold on the way in.
  • Don’t handle it more than you must.

🎒 What to bring

  • A short video and a couple of clear photos of the behaviour or sign — it may not show it in the clinic.
  • A note of your setup (basking, cool-side and night temperatures, UVB, humidity, substrate) and exactly what — and how often — you feed.
  • Your reptile, transported safely in its own secure, ventilated container — kept warm (see below), not in a cold car.

🗣️ What to tell the vet

A general vet may not know this species. Come ready to explain its correct care:

Temperature
Warm hotspot 85–90°F (29–32°C), created with an overhead heat source on a thermostat. 72–77°F (22–25°C) at the cool end, giving the snake a full thermal gradient to choose from. Turn heat off at night and let the enclosure cool to normal room temperature (roughly 70–75°F / 21–24°C is fine); no night heat is needed unless your room drops below the low 60s°F.
UVB & lighting
Low-need, not no-need. Rat snakes can survive without UVB, but modern best practice is a low-output UVB tube because it supports better welfare and D3/calcium metabolism. A T5 HO 5–6% bulb (Zoo Med Reptisun 5.0 or Arcadia Forest 6%) aimed at the basking zone for a UVI of about 2.0–3.0, mounted ~12–14 inches above the snake with no mesh blocking it.
Humidity
Average 50–70%, measured with a digital probe hygrometer placed in the middle of the enclosure. A brief bump toward the higher end helps during shed.
Enclosure
Minimum for one adult is 6'L x 3'W x 3'H (about 180 x 90 x 90 cm) of floor space — bigger is always better. Because rat snakes are strong climbers, height and branches are used, and a tightly locking, escape-proof lid is non-negotiable.
Substrate
A loose, moisture-holding substrate about 4 inches (10 cm) deep for burrowing — soil-based mixes or plantation soil work well. Aspen or cypress mulch are also common. Avoid cedar and pine, which give off harmful oils.
Diet
Strict carnivore: appropriately sized frozen-thawed rodents (mice graduating to rats as the snake grows). Feed adults roughly every 7–14 days; juveniles every 5–7 days. Prey should be no wider than about 1–1.5x the thickest part of the snake's body.
Supplements
A varied whole-prey rodent diet is nutritionally complete, so routine dusting isn't usually required. If you keep UVB modest or absent, a light occasional calcium-with-D3 dust on prey is a reasonable insurance policy — ask your exotics vet what fits your setup.

⚕️ Reptiles are ectotherms kept at species-specific temperatures — a cold reptile can’t metabolise medicines properly, so tell the vet your exact temperatures and keep it warm for transport. Reptiles are prey animals and hide illness until it is advanced, so early changes matter. Mention your UVB/lighting and any supplements or remedies you’ve already used, and ask for reptile-safe products and doses.

Then note which of the warning signs (above) you are seeing, when they started, and whether they are getting worse.

❓ Questions to ask

  • Do you routinely see reptiles? If not, can you refer me to a vet who does?
  • What are the likely causes — and could my setup or diet be contributing?
  • What is the treatment plan, the likely cost, and what should I watch for at home?
  • How do I prevent this from happening again?