Sad story . Great day. Help Please.

[kodog]

Well Ill keep this short and simple. i have a 70g tank . well heated, cooled, humid. unfortunately my 4 1/2 ball enjoys escaping no matter what i seem to stack his cage with. ie. steel table, with a old surround sound system on top, weighs about 100lbs . no matter . he still escaped about 4 months ago.
so. today i found him on my floor when i came home from shopping and he is EXTREMELY pale. like there isn't a hint of brown on his scales. first thing i did was wash him and gave him some water. which I'm restricting because he will drink forever. i thought 10 min's was enough. anyhow. he still has very good size body mass so im hoping hes only severly dehydrated. . my question is . what should i do ? i dont think he is strong enough to kill and i doubt he will eat prekilled [he never has]. i just dont know what i can do, sigh. any advice i would appreciate. thank you.

[kodog]

oh and i thought i throw in there that since then i have aquired a locking mechanism so no more lost balls.

[disabled.101]

If you are really worried you could bring him to the vet?

[BuddhaLuv]

I'm sorry to hear about your BP. I am a new owner and unfortunately don't have any advice but I wanted you to know that I was thinking about you and hope for the best

[llovelace]

It will not hurt to try pre-killed, if he's hungry he'll eat, barring nothing else is going on with him, can you post some pics?

[wolfy-hound]

Why would you restrict his drinking? Do you mean just then when you found him out? Or while he's in his cage?

[Wh00h0069]

Some pythons go off feed for a year, and then have no trouble eating. I suggest feeding him a live small mouse or rat pup. I would also let him drink as much as he wants. Also make sure his temps and humidity are right.

Good luck with him.

[kc261]

If the snake really is severely dehydrated, restricting his drinking is probably a good idea. I don't actually know about this with snakes, but many animals can go into shock or even die if they get too much water too quickly. Again, I don't know what would be proper with a snake, but I would think allowing him access to the water for 10 minutes out of every hour might be a good start. Once he gets to the point where he only drinks a little or not at all, then you should be able to leave it in unrestricted. Just try to make sure it is because his thirst is satisfied, not because he didn't even find the water in the 10 minutes you had it available, otherwise he might drink a lot when he does find it.

In the meantime, you can further help with the dehydration by making sure there is plenty of humidity in his enclosure, more than the usual 50-60%.

The faded color might just be because he is dehydrated and has a stuck shed. The colors can look odd in this case. If you truly mean there is NO brown, then it might be due to something that happens rarely with BPs where they shed and suddenly they have no color, just shades of black & grey. If this has happened with your snake, he should gradually regain color each time he sheds. I believe the causes of this are unknown, but it doesn't not seem to have any negative affects. This thread has pics that will show you what it looks like:
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?t=62581

As far as feeding your snake, after only 4 months, it should be FINE. BPs can go a lot longer than that without food. Is there any reason you said you don't think he is strong enough to eat? When you picked him up and handled him, did he seem to be behaving relatively normally? Or was he limp or something? If there is a problem such as him being limp, I'd get him to a good reptile vet. If that is the case, whatever is causing it probably has nothing to do with having been lose for months, and may indicate he has gotten exposed to some sort of toxin.

If he is behaving relatively normally, I might give him a couple of days to get fully rehydrated and reacclimated to his enclosure, then offer a smaller than usual meal. He should be just fine with that, and if he is, then going back to your regular feeding schedule should be ok.

Glad to hear you have solved the problem so he can't escape again!