Ralph says 'Hello!'

Your thermometer is a little bit away from where the heat lamp is. That might be why your temps are reading so low. Digital Temp gun with probes might work better. Also try covering the right side of your lid with aluminum foil + tape over the top of it or a sheet of plastic. That'll help keep humidity/heat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WTHbbqSnake

Your thermometer is a little bit away from where the heat lamp is. That might be why your temps are reading so low. Digital Temp gun with probes might work better. Also try covering the right side of your lid with aluminum foil + tape over the top of it or a sheet of plastic. That'll help keep humidity/heat.

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Well the heat lamp isn't on at night i just turned it on for a moment to take a picture.


Alright guys... i'm having another problem that i havent ever heard of... i think it might be stress... he slept in the ceramic pot all night and he came out to bask for a moment and started acting all crazy... and then he rolled into a ball belly side up... I knew the guys at the flea market hadn't been treating him good but i thought it was just dehydration or something.

:(

Hi,


What do you mean "acting crazy"?

Was it when you went up to look at him or did it seem to come out of nowhere?

coiling into a ball when frightened is natural ball python behaviour but we need to check thats what actually happened.


dr del

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jeffjr464

i'd say top priority is to get a thermostat, if your uth or something goes on the fritz your in for trouble, everything else is trivial for now, as long as your temps stay above 75 your snake will be fine, but 92-94 hot, 82-84 cool are where you should be aiming to be, it will take some dinking around to keep them constant, have fun!!

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Imma have to disagree to a certain extent. Yes, your top priority is to get a decent t-stat, HOWEVER. I would not consider leaving a snake in a tank with the hot side at 79 degrees to be trivial, especially for more than a few days. Cool temps make snakes very susceptible to diseases/infections such as a URI. I would try to fix both these problem immediately.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by coolcasemods

Well the heat lamp isn't on at night i just turned it on for a moment to take a picture.


Alright guys... i'm having another problem that i havent ever heard of... i think it might be stress... he slept in the ceramic pot all night and he came out to bask for a moment and started acting all crazy... and then he rolled into a ball belly side up... I knew the guys at the flea market hadn't been treating him good but i thought it was just dehydration or something.

:(

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So wait... what are your nighttime temps? There shouldnt be any fluctuation in temps at night. You should either get a CHE (which if I hear you right, you are) or a nightime bulb to keep his temps up. Sounds to me that your snake may already be suffering the consequences of the cold temps and should be taken to a vet ASAP to be tested for an URI. Do you have any other reptiles? If so, I would quarantine this animal if you havn't already.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dr del

Hi,


What do you mean "acting crazy"?

Was it when you went up to look at him or did it seem to come out of nowhere?

coiling into a ball when frightened is natural ball python behaviour but we need to check thats what actually happened.


dr del

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hmm... I'll do my best to describe it.

He came out of his hide and his head was leaning to the side.. and then he kind-of rolled over into a ball with his head down, belly side up.

And last night i saw his head sideways as well and i propped him up proper...

I think it may be due to stress because yesterday a drunked neighbor of mine (no im not kidding) came over and through a pinkie in its face and was slapping him in the face with it before i came in the room and realized what he was doing and i told him to STOP. He used to raise burmese so he thinks thats how its done or whatever...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gooseman

So wait... what are your nighttime temps? There shouldnt be any fluctuation in temps at night. You should either get a CHE (which if I hear you right, you are) or a nightime bulb to keep his temps up. Sounds to me that your snake may already be suffering the consequences of the cold temps and should be taken to a vet ASAP to be tested for an URI. Do you have any other reptiles? If so, I would quarantine this animal if you havn't already.

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No signs of URI. no gaping of mouth and no foam inside mouth.

no harsh/odd breathing either

O.k.


I want you to read these two threads and tell me if this is similar to what he was doing and ask if you can get any pictures of it.

In the first thread I'm afraid the video has been removed but I may have a copy of it and might be able to re-host it if the owner agrees - pay special attention to the description from adams website quoted on page 4.

First thread on loopy

Second thread on loopy

If this isn't similar to what you see we may need to dig bit deeper.


dr del

Ok, thank you Dr. Del.... I think that may be it.

I have a normal ball python and it does what the quote said, let me bold the art he does

Quote:

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Some shook their head from side to side, some spun like tops, and others did the corkscrew thing as they were cruising their cage at night, still others were less noticeable but it was there. The less noticeable ones didn’t wobble or corkscrew, but they held their head at an angle when you looked at them. Kind of like the way a dog looks when it hears something it doesn’t understand.

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I noticed this as well. he did it a few times and then right before he rolled over. i seriously thought he had died when he rolled over... I did not know what was going on.

Also, he did the head tilt, and rolled over and it seemed as if he was wrapping up a prey item because he looked like when a python is being fed.

Hmm,


Well it's not all that common with normal patterned ball pythons from what I understand ( any of you big breeders wanna step in here?) but is fairly common with spider morphs.

There are other reasons for him to be doing it though rather than just genetics so I wouldn't just asume thats what it is or that it isn't something treatable.

list of reptile vets

It might be a great idea ot try and find someone near you who has god knowledge of herps and have him checked for parasites or infections.

If he poo's put it in a ziploxk bag or something in the fridge (NOT the freezer) as they can check it for internal parasites and, while your there they can also take a culture from his mouth to check for RI's etc.

It might be worth while running over the tank set up as well to see if we can get your temps up to par as that will also help his body fight any infections that might be present.

How ( and where) are you measuring the temps?

What kind of UTH are you using?

Did you get any usefull information from the guys you bought him from at all?


dr del