How do I help?
Some of my coworkers took these pictures of a snake we have in our care at work. This snake is NOT ours, he belongs to our boss, so this is a complicated story.
All of us are aware that he is in terrible condition. He has scale rot, and his spine/ribs are visible through his scales. He has no heat source during the day/night, he gets handled almost all day (10am-3pm) for five days a week by kids/staff, and he barely gets breaks (please know myself and my coworkers have changed this recently and started to tell the kids that he's not allowed out because we're so scared of his condition). He gets fed f/t (heated by the sunlight) mice, and we recently bumped up the amount to 3 mice (from maybe 1-2) if he takes them. He doesn't always take them. He has a small bin he lives in (maybe the equivalent of a 20-30gal) with one hide, paper towels and a water dish.
The only thing my coworkers and I can control is the cleanliness and what we verbalize to our boss (the snake's owner). I have a little more voice than my coworkers since I've been there longer (2nd summer), have worked with snakes for 4-5 years now, and have my own ball python at home.
Is there anything that anyone would recommend? Both for something to say to our boss, and maybe even something we can do to help improve the conditions? I'm just scared of this snake's condition. Our boss mentions every time that we don't know how old these snakes are, and he keeps trying to blame his morph (pastel butter/lesser g-stripe) when in reality it's just bad care. He spent a weekend sleeping in his own feces and the scale rot (shown in the pictures post-incident) tripled from its original state.
I've never had to force feed, and I don't know if I WANT to with the mice we have, but this guy is not eating enough and he's not the only one with eating issues. We have another snake losing weight in our care because she hasn't eaten in at least 8 weeks. I also have no idea what to do for clutter or for any security. Our workplace has said no to having heat sources because of it being a fire hazard (we have the worst electrical in the middle of the woods). I just don't know what to do. Again, I'm only showing pictures of one snake, but this one is in the very worst condition. With the others, there is one with a respiratory infection that my boss took home and one that has refused meals for 8 weeks (and also had infected/moldy looking scale rot).
Please keep in mind when responding to this that this is NOT my snake. I can't just take him, and I can't bring him to the vet. He is not my own pet. He belongs to my boss. He is also (thankfully) in shed in these pictures.