9 y/o Female Rescue Suddenly Restless & Destroying Her Enclosure...

[xraven07x]

Hi All,

So my 9 y/o rescue female has almost entirely kicked her RI, but is now giving me a new heart attack after a month. After being a "normal" (as much normal as a maimed python can be), last night she took a great pee and of course did her normal "Oh god get it away!" freak out. I cleaned it up, put her paper towels back and let her out to cruise for a few minutes. She's been happily going from side to side of her enclosure to thermoregulate, spending some hours on the cool side then over to the warm side and then back again. After being let out to cruise, she always returns to whatever hide she prefers at the moment and relaxes. Well last night after I put her back in her enclosure after the light cleaning and cruise time, all hell broke loose. (This was around midnight)...This morning at 7am when I got up, she had DESTROYED her enclosure. Knocked her fake fern over, flipped BOTH hides, dug under the paper towels...And this morning she was still restless and pacing. I put her enclosure back together, let her cruise while I did so, covered any open window area with a dark towel, and she's still just in freak out mode.

Three things have changed in the last few days...I lowered her basking temps back to 91 degrees since she has kicked the RI, I installed a new digital thermometer and put the probe, which is slightly larger than her old one, in her basking house to measure air temperature to make sure it's at a constant 90-ish since that WAS where she was spending all her warm time (Yes I also have a thermometer on the outside as well). But she spent two days in her normal routine with the new probe, unless she JUST noticed it and decided she didn't like it...

And then, the big one...I got a new BP...Proven male, 7 weeks old. He was in mite/etc. quarantine in another room until Wednesday night. I brought him in the other room with the female. She saw him for the first time last night when he came out to cruise his enclosure. She came up to the window and they periscoped intently for a moment, before she seemingly lost interest and went the other direction. This seemed to trigger the onset of this insanity.

I was told by the rescue organization that she makes husbandry an absolute nightmare and is prone to absolute destruction at times...So who knows...Maybe she's feeling better and this is "normal"...

She's due for a third vet follow-up on her RI on Monday, so she's been in good hands medically.

Thanks!

- - - Updated - - -

Also, it is day 6 of her 10 day feeding schedule. She got a medium rat last time, but it was a small medium and it was digested promptly, so she may be combining some hunting with whatever else has her all worked up right now.

[Annarose15]

I don't have an answer for the destruction, except that the thermometer probe needs to be on the surface of the enclosure inside that hot hide, NOT on top of the inside of the hide (if I read your post correctly). You need to know the surface temp, which could be much higher than the air temp in there. Once she's clear of the RI, you might want to switch her to a bedding that she can burrow into for security, and make sure to black out the sides of the tank. Also, bringing a QT animal into the same room isn't really keeping him in QT.

[xraven07x]

Thanks for the response.

The probe is on the surface of the paper towels on the inside of the hide, measuring belly surface temperatures, sorry for the confusion. I have an IR gun for air temperatures. There is another probe on the OUTSIDE of the hide as well. All controlled by separate Herpstats - One for belly heat, one for air temperature (UTH and Lamp) and another for the cool side in winter to keep ambient air at 80-ish.

The IR is gone as of the last vet check 2 weeks ago. Because she's a fragile snake and has alot of issues (She has some neurological damage and necrosis damage from a horrible past neglect 4 years ago), we're going to check her again before changing the substrate back...So small changes. But the vet gave me the go ahead to move the other snake in to the room this week. She has also has evaluated the new snake before he was moved. They're on opposite ends of the room from each other in Vision enclosures. (I only have these 2 BPs and a sand boa...The boa is completely removed and downstairs. I don't breed or have a rack system, I just have taken in these rescues.)

Cheers.

[xraven07x]

I put the original thermometer back (there's nothing wrong with it) and put the new one under the cool hide.

I also re-arranged the UTH Herpstat probe so it was better covered by some paper towels under the hide and re-taped it, because she had dredged it up from under neath and it was all discombobulated.

Within about 10 minutes she was back in her warm hide like nothing had happened. I guess she was just really upset about those probes...