First Regurgitation :(

[edie]

So I keep my 4 smaller snakes right outside of my bedroom on a rack - I was walking into my bedroom and I noticed my 07' female RTB sitting in her water dish moving strangely (I noticed her sitting in there 2 hours ago but she looked fine the first time I saw her).. Anyways I had no idea what she was doing then I started to see a small lump make its way up her neck and finally out of her mouth. I have never seen this happen before or had this happen before, but I have skimmed over some threads about it in the past with other peoples BPs. I feed every Friday or Saturday - she ate whatever she regurgitated 5 days ago I believe.

Do I just keep an eye on her and wait a week (or is it two?) before I feed her again? I'm going into the vet on Friday to get a sugar glider neutered so I'll ask the vet about that too when I get in there (the vet sees my snakes and sugar gliders).

[frankykeno]

Edie, the thing here is to figure out why she had any prey left to regurge five days later. Are her temps warm enough to allow her system to properly digest in a timely manner? Is the prey of the appropriate size that she can digest it in a reasonable time period? Was she handled soon after eating? Any stress or unusual incidents in the days following her feeding day?

When they swallow whole prey there's a fine balance between the time it takes them to digest that prey and the time decomposition of the prey will set in if it's not digested. That's why regurges smell so gawd awful, they are literally tossing up rotting prey from inside them (at least that's my understanding of the process).

First off I'd be making sure to give her a gentle, warm wash off to make sure none of her strong stomach acids that came up with that prey are on her skin. Also I'd be changing her substrate for the same reason. A snake sitting in bedding soaked with those acids can get very badly burnt by them. I'd likely put her on a nice clean soft bedding and make sure she's nice and warm and has clean water and quiet time for the next couple of weeks.

Then I'd try her on a prey item much smaller than normal for her. You want a couple of weeks minimum to allow some healing of her insides from that acid coming up with that nasty prey. You want to feed her lightly for the next few weeks after that to allow her to easily digest her meal and for you to make sure she does not regurge again. Feeding too soon on big prey could trigger another regurge, more damage and a bad cycle of regurging over and over which can kill a snake.

If she regurges again or if you are in any way concerned, please address this with your vet. Do doublecheck your husbandry, housing and feeding routines to see if this is what triggered the regurge.

[JimiSnakes]

Jo nailed it.

[edie]

frankykeno, thank you so much for that reply! It looks like everything came out in the water dish and I am going to give her a soak right now. I will change out all the aspen on that side of the cage as well in case she dumped anything out of the dish.

I have an acurite (sp?) thermometer in her cage and all the temps/humidity look normal, but I will go in again to make sure the thermometer isn't telling me the wrong information.

She shouldn't have been stressed in the past couple of weeks - I have been very busy and have only taken her out of the cage for cleaning, nothing new has been put in or taken out of the cage and she has remained in the same area she has been since she came here.

She is a runt, about half the size of the other snakes born with her clutch (I was told that by the owner who was housing her with 4 other young RTBs, he told me she never ate but I have a feeling it was because she was with other RTBs - once I got her to my house and in her own enclosure she has eaten great for me - only rejecting occasionally). I had been feeding her medium mice, but did bump her up to the smaller jumbos I got in my shipment since they were only slightly larger then the mediums in the other bag. I do have a whole bag of small mice left that I need to use up so I will try those on her once she is able to eat again. So would 2 weeks be a safe waiting time or should I wait 3? I will keep a close eye on her and if anything seems strange I will get an appointment for her - my vets office is only about a 15 min. drive from here.

[frankykeno]

Since she's so tiny probably 2 weeks would be fine (she's not likely to have upchucked gallons of stomach acids) but on balance, she is a young and small snake so don't hesitate to see the vet if she seems off at all. They aren't as tough when they are young as they are as adults.

She should have been fine with mice, heck my boas go straight to rats so that prey size should have been fine for her unless she's incredibly tiny. Any idea of her weight?

Doublecheck that Accurite just in case it's misreading your temps. Sometimes they go wonky if the battery is getting low.

It wouldn't hurt at all to have a fecal float done. Since you're going to be at your vet's anyways, I'd certainly mention the regurge and get a cost on a fecal float just to rule out any issues with internal parasite loads. No need to take her in for that, just the poop and the results come in quickly.

[edie]

I actually have to get a fecal sample for my rescue RTB since we believe that now she is over the RI she has parasites (just my luck!) So I will try to get one for her as well, it may take a while though since she will not be eating for another couple weeks.

The acurite looked fine, I double checked the temp of the heat pad with my digital thermometer and they matched up, it was a little on the cool side though, 4 degrees cooler than I had it set for so I will try to get that fixed right now.

I do not know her weight and I need to get a scale - she is a little tiny though - the small jumbo mice fit in her leaving a slight lump. I know she has grown since being with me now that she can eat without worrying about other snakes in her enclosure, but the weight has been coming on slowly.. She is just finishing her soak now and I will put her back in her cage and cover it so she can have privacy for tonight.

[envy_ld50]

Edie,

This is an odd situation. Which vet are you seeing down here in AZ? I feed all of my boa's rats of the appropriate size as I believe they are much more nutritional. It strikes me as odd because I have never had a boa refuse a meal I am leaning towards internal parasites on this one. Boa's seem to be able to handle larger meals than ball pythons imo and seem to be much more hardy all around, leading me to believe Jo on the internal parasites or some sort of illness. Did you check around the mouth for a RI on her? Let us know what you find!

-Cliff

[edie]

Edie,

This is an odd situation. Which vet are you seeing down here in AZ? I feed all of my boa's rats of the appropriate size as I believe they are much more nutritional. It strikes me as odd because I have never had a boa refuse a meal I am leaning towards internal parasites on this one. Boa's seem to be able to handle larger meals than ball pythons imo and seem to be much more hardy all around, leading me to believe Jo on the internal parasites or some sort of illness. Did you check around the mouth for a RI on her? Let us know what you find!

-Cliff

Hey Cliff - I have had 3 snakes (2 boas and 1 BP) with RIs due to a rescue I brought in and me slipping up somewhere spreading it to the other 2. I have not noticed any signs of RI in the baby boa and I take care of the smaller snakes on different days that the larger ones and they are not in the same room as my other snakes. I will try to get a fecal sample once she starts eating again to see if that has anything to do with it.
I was feeding her mice to start off with once she first came to me since I always tend to offer smaller meals when I first get snakes to ease them into living in a new place - I'm sure she could eat small rats (or whatever other size - I'm not sure of sizing names on rats) but since all I had from my frozen order was jumbo/medium rats and fuzzy/small/medium/jumbo mice I made due and fed her the closest sized prey I had here and the small jumbos seemed to be her size. I am due to order a new shipment of frozen in about 3-4 weeks so I will be ordering more rat sizes then.

I see Dr. Wright and Dr. Johnson at AZ exotic animal hospital and Johnson is the one I see when I go in - I have seen Wright once.

EDIT: And she only refused for me probably 3 times since living here - and one or two of the times was due to her being in shed, the other time I'm not sure why she refused but it didn't worry me too much since she picked back up the next week.

[envy_ld50]

I am sure you'll get it all taken care of. Have you ever noticed how many vet offices there are down here in AZ? Oh BTW I love that little guy in your avatar.

[edie]

I am sure you'll get it all taken care of. Have you ever noticed how many vet offices there are down here in AZ? Oh BTW I love that little guy in your avatar.

I hope so, its just been one thing after another over here. Luckily I'm getting this all taken care of before I move out or I would be going crazy! I'm very happy there are so many vet offices close by, do you see an exotics vet? I'm getting my degree to be a vet tech so the more offices down here the better!