Buggsie's (Ongoing) Road to Recovery - A Rescue Story

Yay, Buggsie! Keep the updates coming!:snake::snake::snake::gj:

"Day 20 - Buggsie took down today's offering with a quickness, striking from his hide and wrapping it up in under a minute of it entering his tub." I checked on him a few minutes later, and found that he had fully exited his hide and turned himself into a ball of snake with a little fuzzy rat butt sticking out of the center. I really should have gotten a photo of it - it was unbelievably cute...from a reptile lover's point of view, at least. I passed, though, in favor of leaving him to eat so now he's cuddled up on his warm spot happily digesting. It's astonishing to think that he could've died from poor husbandry and bad information. :taz: I really can't say how glad I am that my friends running the rescue passed him off to me. I've also made sure to pass on information to them to avoid this type of situation again. Also, I'm hoping that they'll bring me into the loop sooner should they run into a BP related problem in the future.

I believe in slow and steady too. Glad to hear every good report!

Yay! Wish I could've seen that cuteness! Lol Keep going Buggsie and SmoothScales. Love the great news.

Sent from my SGH-T399N using Tapatalk

Woo Hoo for Buggsie I'm loving your progress.

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It's Day 22 of Buggsie's recovery, and I've got those comparison photos I promised! He is quite a bit more difficult to get to sit still these days - so unlike that first week where he was such a limp little noodle that you could sit him anywhere and he wouldn't even twitch. Buggsie also had a mite treatment today, as well as moved a urate. There was a small bit of brown on it, so we may finally get a fecal from him soon! How sad is it to be excited by the prospect of poop? :rolleyes: He actually had a pretty busy day - the urate, getting weighed, a mite treatment, and a photo shoot!

Oh, I didn't tell you how much he weighed? Our little boy (or girl) is up to 131 grams. :oops: He's started filling in a bit more, but you'll be able to tell that from the pictures. We'll probably try sexing again next week because our little guy doesn't look quite so much like a scrawny bag of bones.


"Day 22 - Belly shot comparison." You can see a little of the pink in this shot on the Day 22 side where he's going into shed again. I'm pretty sure they've all gotten together and conspired to go into shed at once, because we've got 4 more with pink bellies and one that just came out of shed. She must've missed the memo. :D Anyway, you can see he looks a little wider in the middle of his belly, filling in a little at a time.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...46115649_o.jpg



"Day 22 - Sitting pretty." Not quite the same pose, but you can see he's sitting up instead of flopping over! Also, holding his head up and looking much more interested in what was going on. The lighting wasn't the greatest, so it may be hard to tell, but he's darkened up a bit as well. If that's the [last] shed, his scales being not so far apart as they were, or a bit of color coming in now that he's got a steady supply of food remains to be seen. I'm glad we got this shot, because he started listing a little when first placed on the tray. Then tried to slither off the side. :rolleyes: A little gentle snoot booping got him to curl up a little for this photo.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...08205441_o.jpg




"Day 22 - Spine comparison." Still a bit skinny, but not nearly as pointy as he used to be! So hard to believe it's the same snake!
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...58830053_o.jpg



Tomorrow will be feeding day. I don't expect any problems with Buggsie, even with the pink belly. Last shed he ate so blue it was a wonder he could see! I'm excited! It may sound weird, but seeing these photos next to each other really makes me want to see him at 40, 50, 60 [days]! It makes me wonder what day I'll look at him and see the plump little body of a healthy sized snake.

I've got more pictures from today's photo session that I'll post up tomorrow along with the feeding update. I just wanted to get this up here while it was only a few hours old.

Its amazing to see just how far this little guy has come. From being extremely skinny and listless, to a more energetic and filling out snake. The dedication to see him thrive is just as amazing! 😄

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fantastic turnaround :snake:

Less than a month and they're already a completely different snake. :gj:

I have a few photos to post! This is sort of a picture dump - a couple are post shed from Day 12, and a few from Day 22 that were taken during the photo shoot.

"Day 12 - I made dis! Dis is mine." I was really surprised that his shed came out so well! I know we showed it off in the video, but I guess having the proper husbandry for even those first 12 days was enough to really get our little friend headed in the right direction. He's pink again, so I'm hoping his next shed comes out in one full piece!
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...31761497_o.jpg


"Day 12 - Freshly shed and looking fine!" His eyes look a little buggy in this one, don't you think? I swear he doesn't look like that in person. Maybe an effect of the picture angle or his head still being so skinny? We'll revisit that idea when he puts on a little more weight. Either way, I just had to share this because he looks so cute in this pose.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...41490313_o.jpg



"Day 22 - Hello, camera!" Buggsie was very interested in the big black, not gonna scare him at all, box that was flashing at him. Not interested enough to sit still for any length of time, though! Even in this simple pose, he looks so much more alive than on Day 1. I swear, that entire first week I was on high alert because I was so scared for him.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...33693835_o.jpg



"Day 22 - Sitting pretty." Here is the Day 22 side of the 'Sitting Pretty' comparison photo. I just noticed that his eyes don't look quite so buggy in this picture as the Day 12 post shed photo, so maybe it is a combo of the angle and how skinny he was. While he's not much bigger now than he was 10 days ago, he IS putting on the weight - slow and steady.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...74337065_o.jpg



"Day 22 - A little tongue out Thursday action." That was something that he never had the energy to do in his first few days. Now, it's pretty much a constant anytime he's out and about! :oops:
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...11165383_o.jpg




"Day 22 - Is safe to slither?" And just like that - he was off! I think he sat still for all of three minutes and then was ready to have his way with the world!
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...55380868_o.jpg



"Day 22 - Can slither this way?" No, Buggsie, I don't want you to fall off the tray.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...83113143_o.jpg



"Day 22 - Can slither that way?" He's such a quick little thing, I almost felt like an octopus trying to block him from heading over the edge!
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...45152512_o.jpg



"Day 22 - Where can slither?" Someone really enjoys their new energy! And I gotta say, it makes me smile that he's so active when he's out of his tub. Always like he's got someplace important to be.
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...52313386_o.jpg



"Day 22 - Don't touch my snoot!" I'm a bad person! I did boop his little snoot. :( I was trying to get him to curl up a bit for pictures but he was having none of that because it was slither time as far as he was concerned. I'm pretty sure he's forgiven me, though. :D
https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...92371311_o.jpg



"Day 23 - Urates! We've got urates - again. Still no fecal, but I'm sure it's on its way!" Buggsie must really be making every gram of his little rats count. Or he's holding it all in so he can explode all over the place. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to option 2, but this urate - like the last one - had a small bit of brown smeared on it. Soon!


"Day 23 - Another rat fuzzy bites the dust! 19 grams down with no problem." Okay, there was one small problem. Buggsie didn't get a very good grab on it, but wrapped it up anyway and ended up with him and his fuzzy in the water bowl. :rolleyes: I gently picked them out and set him in front of his hide. He had a really firm grip on its tail! Which was the part he had gotten in his mouth when he struck. Totally didn't stop him from having his dinner.

Little guy is starting to outgrow his hide! I noticed when I checked him last night that it was lifted up on one side so I checked and he was double stacked on that side which was apparently enough to lift it up. Still no sign of mites, treatment continues. I'm thinking we'll offer him a fuzzy again on Monday and then next Friday we'll try a small pup. If he's got the strength to take it down he'll be switched to pups full time and we'll scale back his feeding days from every 4 days to once a week. He's out of danger from starvation now and while he's still underweight, I don't want to over do it to quickly. He's already nearly doubled in weight in the 24 days we've had him and now that he's out of the woods, there's no need to rush him to size. Slow and steady because we're in this for the long haul and Buggsie's over all health, not just a quick recovery!