Advice with really skinny rescue BP

My friend who breeds BPs contacted saying he knew a guy who had a bumble bee male who hadnt been taken good care of and wanted to know if I wanted it for free to give it a shot (pics below). He doesn't have room and can't risk taking in any unknown snakes. I got this snake and the most information I have about it is that its about 1.5 years old. It is however very skinny compared to my other pythons.

I currently have him in the other room than my snake rack in a 32 quart tub heated on 1 side to 91 and covered with a towel to try to give him some privacy. He doesnt seem to have a RI or make any weird noises. He explores the bin and moves from the cool to warm side. Today I wanted to feed him and even though hes probably 3 feet long, I didnt want to give him something to big as he is probably weak. I ended up bringing home a medium-large mouse (hes not much thicker... :( ) and put it in the tub with him. He uncoiled and started searching around the cage. He even kept going straight to the mouse then looking at it and licking it but never took it.

I feel really bad because he is pretty skinny and think he needs some kind of meal in him. I killed the mouse and attempted to assist feed him but stopped unsuccessfully because I didn't want to REALLY stress him out.

What are all of your opinions of what I should do for him? Try a different mouse/color? Try a rat fuzzy because maybe hes a rat eater? Take him to a vet? I know BPs can live a long time without eating but he looks like hes already done that.

I would like to do the vet but all of them in this area (Miami) are very expensive.

Hard to tell how skinny he is in the pics but at the certain angle you can see his spine and not much meat on the sides of him.

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/7...1223024150.jpg

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8...1223024235.jpg

I would wait a day or two and then offer a Pre- killed or F/T prey item. If he doesn't take it, then leave it in the tub with him overnight, and give him total darkness and isolation. If he's in a room that you can turn out the lights and leave him alone, do that. If not, cover his tub with a towel, shirt, sheet, or something like that. He may decide to take it sometime during the night. Good Luck! I hope he comes through for you...

Poor little guy. :( I have so much respect for people like you who are willing to take in an animal in need and do what they can to improve its quality of life. So, kudos.

I would just give the poor thing some time to adjust to a new home. He is definitely skinny, and definitely needs food, but until he feels safe, it's unlikely he will eat. Vipryz has some great suggestions, just leave him be in the dark for a few days and let him get comfortable. Then try feeding again, trying different options (mice, rats, f/t, prekilled, live) If after a few tries you can't get him to eat, then he is probably a good candidate for assist feeding. In my opinion, assist feeding should be done only in a life threatening situations, and this poor guy is so thin, I would say he qualifies. For all you know, it could be so long since he's eaten, he's just given up. :(

I just rescued a female normal that was in the same boat, No RI, No visible illness I gave her a few days to adjust and offered her a live Rat pup and she demolished it, she ate two that day and a med rat four days later. I switched her to F/T and she has no problem with it she'll eat anything. Give him a couple of days isolation and try again.

Good Luck!!!

Yep, a few days. I would try the live rat pup, at that point. If he's not interested in anything after a week, you may want to do the vet after all. A vet can tube feed him some Carnivore Care or something, and get some nutrition into him, and then after a few days you'll have a fecal sample to check him for parasites. As skinny as he is, he should be willing to eat as soon as he's adjusted to his new home, so if he doesn't, he may well be sick.

Weigh him, then look up what he should weigh for his sex and length. Then you are probably going to have to force fluids or food. Blender time! Some people have actually used baby food with calcium in it for bps who are underfed like this. Forcing may be the only option at this point.

I was lucky with my two rescues. Both were hungry and used to live food...so they took food right away. One was able to get the food down...he's over three feet, and though you could feel his ribs, and he was severly dehydrated, he was active and alert.

The second...is over four feet...and weighed less than 1.5lbs. This snake was so weak, and dehydrated, all i could get it to eat was the rat tail, and that took forEVER to get down because of the extreme muscle loss. After the rat, the next day i went to small hopper mice...lots of water, and baths.
Ten mice later, we moved up.
I haven't weighed him in a while (his nickname is "Ribs") but he's finally got enough muscle to move around and eat on his own, and has gotten up to a gpig down! I moved it back to small rats, injected with water, though, because i was worried about his kidneys because he had been dehydrated for so long and has had a bit orange in the urates.

Okay, so what happened to them as they were recovering...3 consecutive sheds, moving from horrible bits, to individual scales, to finally a whole, nice, shed. Eye caps are off finally, and they are doing great! It's been since a week before Halloween, when i got them.

If you can feel ribs, the snake is too thin, and NEEDS nourishment. I would also make sure it's getting fluids. good luck! Hope my story helped you get an idea of things!

try to find out what the snake was feeding on before you got him. and also find out if it was live f/t or p/k . start off feeding slow and work your way up. it won't take long once he starts to feed, they can put weight on quickly. check closely for mites and recheck again in about a week. when you feed don't bother him at all. and turn out the lights, it will make him feel more secure. hope this helps and nice pickup, once you get him feeding it looks like you will have a nice bee.

I would say he is close to 3 feet but only weighs 400 grams. He spine definantly sticks up but he still has some fat on him. You cant really feel his ribs.

He pooped a small but of white stuff last night that looks like what my other smaller snakes do. I am going to try a live rat pup tomorrow night after it gets dark. I dont know why but I have a feeling he will eat it. I will update this thread with anything that happens.

Update.

Yesterday I left a rat pup in a bag on top of his cage all day. About 1 am this morning I dropped it in his tank which is covered by a towel. I barely had time to sit on the couch next to him before he nailed it. He killed and took it down no problem.

Hopefully I get the same thing next week.

I'd try a live hopper mouse. They tend to peak their interest more than a live rat pup just crawling around the tub. Just keep his husbandry correct and try offering a live hopper mouse. It works every single time for my picky eaters, once they continue to eat consistently switch to adult mice, then worry about switching to f/t. Good luck on getting this boy healthy :salute:

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Originally Posted by Billy305

Update.

Yesterday I left a rat pup in a bag on top of his cage all day. About 1 am this morning I dropped it in his tank which is covered by a towel. I barely had time to sit on the couch next to him before he nailed it. He killed and took it down no problem.

Hopefully I get the same thing next week.

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Since he's underweight, and the prey is small, you could easily put him on a 4-5 day schedule until he's up to appropriately sized prey and gains some weight. Note: This is NOT power feeding.

And that small white "poop" you saw? Urate, not feces.

Oh, and congratulations on getting him to eat and your new addition!

glad to hear that he ate for you. now you know what he will feed on. if you didn't see a slight lump in him after he ate. you could up the size slightly each time until you do. good luck with him and keep us posted on his progress.

Thanks. I plan to up the size but want to start out smaller to lessen stress as well as not have him regurg something too big for him in the weak condition.

Sounds great--he'll probably regain his strength pretty quickly, so be prepared to move him up to something more appropriately sized after a meal or two. He's not likely to put on much weight eating rat pups.
Hopper rats would be a better choice.

Remember, ball pythons are made for fasting, so his body will know what to do with that nourishment pretty quickly.

Update: Since I've had him hes eaten a rat pup and two small rats. He refused the last two meals which was kind of discouraging. However I woke up this morning to find a full fresh shed in his tub. This is a good sign because it means hes growing and had a healthy shed. Also could be the reason he refused his last two. I will try to feed again tomorrow or Tuesday.

That's great! Sounds like he's on his way to being a nice plump guy!

He's adorable, good for you for taking him in. :)

Hes now refused a meal for the third time in a row. He always seems really interested like he was at first and gets right up on it smelling the prey but never attacks. However he weighs like 450 grams empty so hes put on 50 grams since I got him and shed recently so I guess as long as he isnt losing weight hes on the right track. \

Any input?

Thank you for this; very encouraging. We just got a normal from Petdumb, and she is skinny skinny. They were giving her a fuzzy mouse. one a week. :( If you can get yours to take food and put on weight, I have hope for our little one.

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Originally Posted by Billy305

Hes now refused a meal for the third time in a row. He always seems really interested like he was at first and gets right up on it smelling the prey but never attacks. However he weighs like 450 grams empty so hes put on 50 grams since I got him and shed recently so I guess as long as he isnt losing weight hes on the right track. \

Any input?

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Depending on your definition of "small rats," it's possible he's just taking a break from the larger prey. You could drop him down to weanling rats (~30-45g). If you're feeding F/T, make sure it's fully thawed and the head is good and warm. Other than that, I wouldn't be worried as long as he's not losing weight. There are lots of "tricks" that people try, but he obviously knows what food is and is capable of eating when he wants to, so I would just leave him to his own schedule.

Oh, and to Pixall - Up your feeding to every 4-5 days for the little one until she fills out better (I know you said the store was feeding weekly, but don't know how often you are). Many people (myself included) feed every five days at least until they reach ~500g anyway.

Congrats! I'm glad he took the rat pup for you. Perhaps the only thing wrong with him, then, is that no one fed him.

I would put him on a 5 day feeding schedule, and scale up the rats to the correct size in just 2 feedings. As animals adapted to fasting, it won't take his system long to recover from the near-starvation.