Furry Poop or Regurgitation?

Hey all, hope you can help with this one!

Fed my BP (just under 900g) a small rat a few days ago. He ate it just fine and for the past couple days I've been letting him rest it off like usual with no handling.

This morning I went to go mist down his cage after waking up and noticed something floating in the water dish. It looks like a really long white hairball and isn't dense or anything, so I don't think it's a regurgitation. But I've never seen this before (had him since Jan) so I'm not sure if this is normal. Did he just finally pass a ton of fur from his prior meals?

Honestly can't make much of an answer without a photo....
My first guess and most likely answer is something fell into the water dish and that was actually just bacteria. It will make fuzzy balls of gunk sometimes around something like a small peice of debris.

Second guess would be more like a regurge than poop. White sounds too clean to have gone through the entire digestive tract and still look nice. And the water would have to be gross for the poop to have rinsed off the fur to leave it pale enough.

Just keep an eye on him for now. I do doubt it was a regurge, but if you wait a little longer before his next meal than usual, a couple extra days, it's just a safe precaution. If anything else seems off and serious, of course I'd recommend a vet. But in the meantime just make sure his water dish is nice and clean.

A picture is worth a 1000 words...but just guessing that yes, it might be that he expelled (defecated) a lot of fur from previous meals that was sorta "saved up". IF it was a regurgitation or vomit, it would most likely smell bad enough to gag you- that's not something WE can tell you. It's all yours to investigate...;)

Unfortunately I didn't think to get a photo. This happened right before I was supposed to leave for work, so I was more concerned with getting his tank cleaned up before I had to leave so that he had clean water and hides available.

I don't think it was any kind of bacteria or mold, unless there's some kind that can spring up overnight. I usually keep his water dish pretty clean, change it regularly, and I keep a couple old copper pennies in it to help with bacteria. It was fine last night before I went to bed.

When I went to dump out the water and clean up the dish before refilling it, I noticed there was also a bit of poop at the center, but no other digested remains other than fur. I'm thinking now he really did just poop out a bunch of fur and when it sat in the water dish the fur just poofed out. Gross, but not as alarming as I first thought.

It's a good thing we love our pets, because they do seem to enjoy throwing us curveballs haha

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Originally Posted by VelkynKarma

Unfortunately I didn't think to get a photo. This happened right before I was supposed to leave for work, so I was more concerned with getting his tank cleaned up before I had to leave so that he had clean water and hides available.

I don't think it was any kind of bacteria or mold, unless there's some kind that can spring up overnight. I usually keep his water dish pretty clean, change it regularly, and I keep a couple old copper pennies in it to help with bacteria. It was fine last night before I went to bed.

When I went to dump out the water and clean up the dish before refilling it, I noticed there was also a bit of poop at the center, but no other digested remains other than fur. I'm thinking now he really did just poop out a bunch of fur and when it sat in the water dish the fur just poofed out. Gross, but not as alarming as I first thought.

It's a good thing we love our pets, because they do seem to enjoy throwing us curveballs haha

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You also didn't give us a sense of the actual size, but in the past, once in a while I've seen a snake defecate some fur-laden material- you can actually see the swirls of thick fur in it- obviously it was more than they could digest- & btw, I don't recall this ever happening when feeding mice- only when feeding rats, & their fur is much more coarse (& apparently hard to digest). I wouldn't worry about it- chalk it up to just another snake-prank. :snake: