Malnourished ball: Frost

i will separate them tonight. i have to bring the other cage in from the shed and let it warm up.

Very small meals, very little handling, good heat and humidity and hiding spots. With care she will probably do okay. But be aware that with no food probably came little fresh water too, and extended dehydration and starvation can often damage organs past recovery. So you could do everything right and then she may die anyway, due to organ damage.

Definitely keep them all separately. A sick snake can look fine until it gets very very ill, so you've put your pets at risk bringing in new animals.

Good luck with them.

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Very small meals, very little handling, good heat and humidity and hiding spots. With care she will probably do okay. But be aware that with no food probably came little fresh water too, and extended dehydration and starvation can often damage organs past recovery. So you could do everything right and then she may die anyway, due to organ damage.

Definitely keep them all separately. A sick snake can look fine until it gets very very ill, so you've put your pets at risk bringing in new animals.

Good luck with them.

Yes, keep her meals small for now, and don't offer more than every 7 days. If she regurged, it can take a few weeks to a month for her system to recover. Make sure she has plenty of clean water and keep her enclosure stable with heat and humidity. Keep her quiet, and a little extra darkness isn't a bad idea either. I've dealt with one that was a skinny as her, it took a long time for him to come around, but he was young and eventually he did great and when he went to a new home, you would never have believed he was the same snake.

Your girl is older, and depending on how long the neglect went on, she could easily have permanent damage. The only way you will know is by taking things slow and watching her carefully.

If you are like me, the hardest part will be keeping the food small and the feedings steady. It hurt my heart to look at the boy I had, and my mother instinct wanted to bury him in food. I knew such a course of action would have been disastrous, so I kept things slow and small for his sake. And even though it seemed to take forever, once he started growing again, he really blossomed.

Offering her mice right now is fine. Keep them on the small side, even if you think she could handle bigger ones. She is very weak and has little to no muscle tone, so a frisky adult mouse might be too much for her. Even if you have to go with young adults, just out of the crazy hopper phase, as long as she eats consistently, they'll help her get back on track.

I wish you all the best with her. She didn't deserve to be neglected so badly, and I hope with all my heart she'll do well now that you are giving her a fighting chance.

Gale

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Very small meals, very little handling, good heat and humidity and hiding spots. With care she will probably do okay. But be aware that with no food probably came little fresh water too, and extended dehydration and starvation can often damage organs past recovery. So you could do everything right and then she may die anyway, due to organ damage.

Definitely keep them all separately. A sick snake can look fine until it gets very very ill, so you've put your pets at risk bringing in new animals.

Good luck with them.

- - - Updated - - -

Very small meals, very little handling, good heat and humidity and hiding spots. With care she will probably do okay. But be aware that with no food probably came little fresh water too, and extended dehydration and starvation can often damage organs past recovery. So you could do everything right and then she may die anyway, due to organ damage.

Definitely keep them all separately. A sick snake can look fine until it gets very very ill, so you've put your pets at risk bringing in new animals.

Good luck with them.

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Ah, yes... I guess I forgot to address the feeding question in my last post. I agree with the small meals to start. I would even go so far as to go with a single large mouse per feeding, once every 7 to 10 days to start. Once she starts eating consistently, then work on bumping up the prey size a bit. The key is to ease into getting her up to weight as you don't want to shock the system by trying to overcompensate for the past...

I think you'll have a pretty good chance of getting her back up to health. I took in a bunch of rescues about a year ago who had been fed once every few months if that (I'm talking 3 year old plus snakes that came to me at 200 grams) and I've managed to get them all back in shape...

Good luck and great job on the rescue!

with some rearranging of hides and a quiet few days without being handled or us trying to feed her, frost ate a rat pup! she was very eager to eat and was up and moving around after her meal. so far she has kept it down, and we're hoping this is a sign that she will pull through this.

we talked to a breeder experienced with malnourished regurging snakes in our lacale and he gave us some pro biotic to help build up bacteria in her digestive tract to keep her from regurging. hopefully it works and she'll keep her meals down.

Frost is eating regularly without any fuss. She is starting to fill out nicely, in my opinion. I will have to take some recent pictures of her and post them on here. Thank you all for the advice! All of it combined helped a lot!

Awesome to hear! I hope she continues to recover wonderfully for you!