What is this?!!!

Yup, that's oviduct. She's done breeding, and may even die.
Why would you palpate an egg out of her?
She would have done it on her own...
Sad, very sad.

As others have confirmed, that is all or part of her oviduct.

I hope that this graphic picture of a well meaning breeder/friend inadvertently tearing internal organs out of their valuable female breeding snake is a warning to other keepers as to just how serious a problem egg binding can be. If you are not a huge breeder who has significant experience with this problem and has observed in person how vets handle this situation, I would strongly discourage people from trying to deal with egg retention on their own. A good herp vet should be your FIRST move.

This is an area where vets have a lot of advantages over the average Joe. Often just fluids, some calcium/oxytosin, and some privacy is all that is needed to get an exhausted female to finish passing her eggs. If an egg is very close to the vent it is sometimes possible to palpate it out however the snake should be sedated and you need to make sure that the oviduct is not coming with it! The chance that you will successfully palpate out an egg that is higher up, out of an awake female snake without hurting her is slim to none.

Using medical management, aspiration of egg contents, endoscopy, and/or surgery a knowledgeable vet should be able to get most eggs out and preserve both the life and the breeding function of the female. A few hundred $ in treatment costs are more than outweighed by the reproductive value of most ball pythons.

This snake still needs a trip to a vet ASAP to prevent infection at the very least.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Sorry to see that, I will watch for the update.

Only other thing I've seen that's even remotely close - http://www.worldofballpythons.com/blog/hard-belly/

What you've got there came out of the female, not the baby though, so I really doubt it's the same thing.

Good luck.

This happens to my friend ghost ball python female too, but much worst than this, he found the eggs scattered around the females and full of bloods! really a mess! he don't do any palpating, the eggs just came out by themselves, maybe the mom had some issued before. He then wiped out all the eggs and put them in the incubator, the bad news is the mom dead a few days after that, and the good news is surprisingly 2 of the 5 eggs hatched!

Any updates?

Well all the eggs died in the bator. The mom is doing fine, although i couldnt convince him to take her to a vet. Ive yet to tell him the general consensus from this thread (ovaduct). I dont know how to break it to him. I wasnt there when he massaged the egg out but i was told it took very little effort. :( this sucks. This spider was his baby hes gonna be heartbroken.

Perhaps if you told him that by palpating that egg out he also ripped out a significant bit of her reproductive organs he would reconsider the vet. It's utterly ridiculous that he is refusing to take her.

You got advice from people with expertise to rush that animal to a vet. You withheld that information from the actual owner of the snake FOR 10 DAYS because it's too hard to break it to them? That's wildly selfish and counter-intuitive. It's outright neglectful for the animal as well. Snakes can't scream when they're experiencing gut-wrenching pain.


Very sad. With that attitude you probably shouldn't be attempting to breed animals in a controlled environment.

Oh my lord... I have never seen that before. He needs to be told the full extent of the damage so he can make an educated decision on a vet. Which absolutely needs to happen.
That's crazy


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