Runny poop?

Hey everyone,

So I've had an interesting thing happen to two of my ball pythons this week. Both are females (both het pied, not that that matters but kind of strange), both shed this week, and both have had one of their last two bowel movements in the past 10 days be runny or partly runny.

When the first female did it, I didn't think much of it but definitely kept an eye on her to see if anything else was strange. Since then, she's eaten fine, acts totally normal, and her next bowel movement was totally normal.

The second one also has been eating fine (they both get fed every 7-10 days), had a normal poop, then today had a bowel movement that was half normal and then the rest liquidy.

The ONLY thing I can think of that has been different than what they've been exposed to for the past year is that I just recently started putting them through a night drop, from an 88-90 degree hot side to a 83-85 degree hot side at night.

Is this something I should be very worried about? Anyone else had this happen? These girls are like my babies, so I'm kind of freaking out!!!

Thanks,
Kourtney

Cooler temps can lead to poor digestion. When you see them seeking the cold side on their own I would drop temps 2F to 88F hot spot.

Well that's the thing, all of my female have been hanging on the cool side of their drawers for months now, so I really didn't think that setting the night temp to drop was going to affect them too much considering I almost NEVER saw them in their hot spot anyways.

I'll have to hop in and see how low my night drop gets tonight and adjust it a bit higher if it goes lower than it was originally. It's just strange that none of my other balls have been having this issue.

A night drop is not recommended so it's all a matter of preference. I don't night drop mine and I know other people that don't as well.

In my rack for instance most of my BP's will bonce around the tub to regulate properly, and my Lemonblast I always see on the hot side but my Spider which is one rack slot below her always stays on the cool side. This isn't to say he doesn't make the trip to the hot side but I don't recall ever catching him there. Though I may readjust him to the top slot because it's a bit cooler there versus my bottom slots(racks can be annoying). This will be just purely for my comfort to see if he goes to the hot side at all or if I catch him there rather.

Hmm, I guess I'm confused. I've always read and been told that if I wanted to breed, I needed to cycle my females and give them a small night drop, so that's what I've started doing. Is that not what I'm supposed to be doing then?

a lot of females may not develop follicles unless you cool them, some will...some wont. why yours are crapping runny could be a number of things...but that much of a heat drop probably did not cause it. I would be checking for internal parasites myself. this can cause runny poop. may not be the case, but that would be the first thing I would be checking... get stool samples to the vet. have you introduced any new animals lately? have you gotten rodents from a new source? these are a few of the things I would check.

When my girl started getting runny poops, it was a result of stress throwing off the balance of bacteria in the gut. It could be that the temp drop has caused stress and upset a few tummies, if it happens again you may want to bag it and get a fecal done.

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Originally Posted by rickm

a lot of females may not develop follicles unless you cool them, some will...some wont. why yours are crapping runny could be a number of things...but that much of a heat drop probably did not cause it. I would be checking for internal parasites myself. this can cause runny poop. may not be the case, but that would be the first thing I would be checking... get stool samples to the vet. have you introduced any new animals lately? have you gotten rodents from a new source? these are a few of the things I would check.

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No new animals and no new food source given yet. I just got rats from a new vendor (a more local vendor) but the rats they have been eating when this happened have been the same they've been eating for the last year.

I was planning on taking a fecal in if it happens again, just wasn't sure if this was a "common" thing that happened.