Newb with pics

hey everyone, im a new snake owner. i have 2 young ball pythons. they were brought to my veterinary practice on the brink of death and were surrendered. ive studied the care of snakes for a long time so im fairly confident i can care for them properly. here are a picture of them. sorry no wild colors but both snakes are very sweet and good eaters. great to be here.
George is the one up front and sally is in the back.
http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/seats009.jpg

Welcome! It is nice to hear that someone is taking in a couple rescues :)

I do have a few suggestions that could help give George and Sally a more comfortable and happy life.

First of all, it is a general consensus that these snakes are not social animals and receive no benefit from being housed together. Often times, one snake will go off feed while the other will take off and grow quickly, the other slugging behind. Not to mention if one gets sick, they both get sick. If one has internal parasites, you would have to do two fecals and treat both snakes. If they are in fact male and female, breeding at a young age is also something to worry about.

It is in yours and the snakes best interest to separate them.

Also, I would get them some different hides. Ball pythons are super shy snakes and enjoy hiding ALL THE TIME! Hides don't have to be expensive. I use plastic cereal bowls from the dollar store (4 for $1) and cut a hole in the side as an entrance.

Also, I can't see from the picture how you are heating the tank, measuring temps, or controlling your heat source so I will do a quick run down of the cheapest and easiest method. An under tank heater is best with these guys since they are ground dwelling animals. If you use an under tank heater (UTH) you must use it with a reptile thermostat to prevent thermal burns. The reptitemp 500r is an inexpensive unit but hard to find in stores. There are many for sale online. You also want to accurately measure the temperatures in the tank. An Accurite weather station from the home depot, lowes, or walmart, does a great job of taking all the measurements you need. It is only $12 and you only need one per setup.

They are beautiful little ones! and ps, looks like George is going into shed so make sure to keep your humidity around 70% to prevent stuck shed.

Good luck with them!

How nice to come across a couple beautiful snakes.
Gunter, my friend, I think you may find that the general snake keeping community is seriously against keeping snakes together for a number of reasons. I would guess that being a new snake keeper, you don't know this yet. I'd read up a bit more on the subject if I were you.
Concerning husbandry, there is always more to learn. You are going to want at least 2 hides, one on the warm side and one on the cold. Other than that, I would assume you know the rest since you have been doing research. Best of luck.

thank you so much for the information. i have already sepperated them. i am in fact a veterinary technician but ive never worked with exotics. the fact that the head doctor at my practice is deathly afraid of snakes may have something to do with that. im actually trying to get part time work at an exotic practice to learn more about caring for them on a medical level. i do have a UTH as well as a heat lamp. ive heard several suggestion on what is the best temp for them. please tell me what is correct. also the research i have done is more along the lines of thier health care so any additional pointers would be greatly appreciated. thanks again both of you for your help.

This caresheet should answer everything with good info:

http://ball-pythons.net/modules/Sect...warticle&id=59

I'm glad you could care for them when someone else couldn't!

They do look healthy overall. :) It's nice to know they are in good hands.

Welcome to the addiction.

ive actually found sally a new home, but george is too awesome of a snake to let go. you can touch his face his neck, he dosnt care. back when he was a patient at the hospital ive removed his eye caps on more than one occation and he was cool with it. hes very active and dosnt seem very shy. i guess i just got lucky. george is about to shed, and his feeding day is tomorrow, should i still offer it to him?

heres another pic, taken the same night.
http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/seats008.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by guntersxr

ive actually found sally a new home, but george is too awesome of a snake to let go. you can touch his face his neck, he dosnt care. back when he was a patient at the hospital ive removed his eye caps on more than one occation and he was cool with it. hes very active and dosnt seem very shy. i guess i just got lucky. george is about to shed, and his feeding day is tomorrow, should i still offer it to him?

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I offer food to all my snakes even if they are in shed. Most of them will eat fine during shed :)

ok, i just fed both of them, they grabbed and suffocated the mice immediately. oddly enough its taking both of them 45 minutes so far to get them down. theyre still trying but havnt even passed the first legs yet. what should i do? continue to wait?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by guntersxr

ok, i just fed both of them, they grabbed and suffocated the mice immediately. oddly enough its taking both of them 45 minutes so far to get them down. theyre still trying but havnt even passed the first legs yet. what should i do? continue to wait?

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Don't worry about it. Sometimes it takes a little longer for it to go down. As long as it does, its not a problem.

Just give them a little time. As long as what was offered is not too big for them to get down they will get it eventually. Rarely is the food item too big. Often its too small. Let us know how it goes.

A quick note on what you said about removing the eyecaps more than once now. How did you remove them? Raise the humidity when they are in shed or use some bacitracin on the eyes during a shed cycle if you think they have stuck eyecaps. Playing with them dangerous. You dont want to accidentally remove the protective cap which is supposed to be there under the outer eyecap.

myself and one of the veterinarians i work with did it. i held his head still and gently rubbed the eye caps with a saline soaked gauze and when they gave a bit he gently removed them with hemostats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by guntersxr

myself and one of the veterinarians i work with did it. i held his head still and gently rubbed the eye caps with a saline soaked gauze and when they gave a bit he gently removed them with hemostats.

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I would be VERY careful when messing with eye caps. If it is only one stuck eye cap, I wouldn't even attempt to remove it. Just increase the humidity for the next shed cycle and it should come off on its own.

Their eyes are just so fragile it isn't worth messing with if its only one stuck eye cap.

We just had a story here recently of a vet attempting to remove some stuck eye caps and actually removed the protective layer over the eye. The snake is going to loose one of its eyes and possibly the other.

he knew enough to know what not to pull off too much. btw, george finally after an hour finally put it down. sally has still made no progress, she knawing on the mouse' neck. ill check on her again in a half hour i guess.

If they were not fed very often when you got them maybe they are just hungry and excited but out of practice. She'll probably take it.

As for the eyecaps, I'm glad it was a wet gauze that was used but its still not necessary to remove them. Who removes them in the wild when they have a flaky shed? With just a little extra attention they will always come off on their own. Always.

Not getting on you at all. Im just saying its better to just let it take care of itself than to get into the habit of causing a snake that kind of stress more than once, or twice, etc etc.

Its really not anything you should ever need to worry about is all im saying.

no worries, im not offended by anything youve said. im extreemly greatful for all this information. they were only fed small fuzzies once a week. thats not enough for an 18" snake. theyre much healthier now that thier eating live.

so check this out, george is good to go but sally has had the mouse for almost 4 hours. it looks almost like its cought in her throat. i took a few pics to give u guys an idea of what im talking about. their crappy pics but i didnt want to bug her too much. she hasnt done anything like this before.
http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/DSC05527.jpg
http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/s...r/DSC05528.jpg

I think its all the stuck shed preventing her from getting her food down.

I don't really know how to deal with this situation, hopefully some other members can chime in. All I can think of is to try and get her to spit it out.

She doesn't look good though. :(

i could mist her with water, that always pisses her off. idk wtf to do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by guntersxr

i could mist her with water, that always pisses her off. idk wtf to do.

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I really have no experience with this situation but that prey item either needs to go in or out.

How long has she been sitting there with the prey item in her throat?

really from start to finish its all moving just extremely slow. i just checked on her again and itts moved down another inch or so. i think its moving in the right direction. im just not sure y so damn slow. i guess we can blame it on the shed.

Alright well hopefully it goes down okay. If it doesn't by tomorrow I would take her to see the vet :)

Also, give her tank a good misting to boost the humidity so she can get some of that shed off herself.

If she still has shed stuck to her 48 hours after eating, then give her a soak to get the rest off.

Make sure the temps and humidity are correct in her enclosure. Honestly if they were fed such small prey before then those mice might have been a tad too big for them right now. I would have gotten them to take a smaller meal for a few weeks before offering something bigger. Not fuzzy size but bigger than weaned.

If that mouse is not down by early morning do like you would if you assist fed one that tried to regurge before it was all the way down. Very gently massage the area in front of the mouse while touching the snakes tail to encourage it to crawl forward and flex the mouse down into its stomach.

Hot side at 90, ambient temp at 79/81, humidity around 60%.

If it is not right they will not be able to digest and the meal could kill them. Next time feed something a little easier to get down. When they are malnurished like that you should start them out small and work up.

well i woke up around 4am and checked on her and the mouse had made it to her belly. she has ate live mice once a week for a month so far, i wouldnt think this would have been too much for her. hopefully next week this dosnt happen again. thank you all so much for being available to help. you guys have been great!