Still has a food bulge after a week?

My boy Kevin has been doing some weird things lately. First, he had a regurge-like thing about a week ago, which was 99% hair. He had had a bit if a bulge from food when I gave him the adult mouse 10 days ago, but it has not diminished very much. Here is his basic timeline from the past 3 weeks. 1/17 FT hopper, maybe 10-15 grams, still in QT. 1/22 he moved out of 10 gallon QT and i to 41 qt rack 1/24 FT adult mouse 20 grams (he weighed 180 grams before this feeding) 1/31 ft adult mouse 2/2 weird regurge thing, more like a hairball .Today he still has this interestingly large bump, I put off his scheduled feeding this week to let him recover. Here are the bulge pics
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/10/a6uqa7ad.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/10/deva2ezy.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/10/zu5udesy.jpg

And regurge pics if you didn't see my other thread http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/10/e5y9utun.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/10/evedadeb.jpg

What is going on? Temps in both my QT and regular have been spot on (90 hot 80 cool) and the prey size hasn't been unreasonable, although a bit bigger than he was used to. Help please!

Boas temps "technically" should be a few degrees warmer than that. Like 82 ish ambient, and 92-94 ish hot spot. Also, their metabolism is much slower. They shouldn't be fed anything that will leave a noticeable lump. They also should only eat every 7-10 days. So warm him up, and smaller prey next time, and proper time between meals. Keep an eye on him, and let us know what happens.


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Honestly (IMO) he shouldn't still have a bulge, and with his regurge thing he coughed up I'm wondering if there may be something else going on with him health wise.
Your temps are what I keep my boas at (I do keep them cooler than my balls at the same 90 hot spot you have and their ambient temps are actually cooler, around 79/80 and I haven't had any problems: I keep my Argentines a little cooler than that even) and I've never had any of my boas retain a bulge as long as your guy.
I'd wait to feed until it's totally gone, feed something smaller than usual like DooLittle said, and put him on a 10 day schedule to see if that helps him. He may just digest slower if your husbandry is spot on, but keep an eye on him.

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Agreed. 10 day feeding schedule - although I would wait until that bulge is completely gone and/or he poops for you before feeding again - even if its another 2 weeks. Boas have a much slower metabolism so it won't hurt him at all to wait that long between meals. Even if he only regurged hair, a regurge of any kind is still a regurge. Proceed with caution.

What sticks out to me is this: he was fed an adult mouse on 1/24 and again on 1/31 - one week apart. That normally would be fine, but I fear an adult mouse was simply too large a prey item for him twice in a row and he couldn't handle it. When you DO feed again, don't do anything larger than a hopper and I'd stick to that size or maybe weanlings for a couple more months until he's a) put on some size and b) has stopped the regurging 100%.

Incidentally, I also keep my boas at cooler temps than my balls. 76 ambient and 88 hotspot. :gj:

UPDATE! I woke up this morning to a monstrous dump. Kevin pooped more than my 700 gram bee sometimes does!
Definitely learned my lesson, he is back down to hoppers on a 10 day schedule for now! Thanks everybody! And because I was so glad to see him back to normal, pics!
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/19/3adu6amu.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/19/4yseqy2a.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/19/yja3etas.jpg
An appropriate sized prey item!
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/02/19/uvu4a8ys.jpg

Thanks for all the help everybody

Good for you and Kevin!!! Glad to hear it - and he's looking mighty fine now! :gj:

Yay Kevin! And for epic dumps, lol.

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An epic dump could also point to too large of prey. But....

Yay!!!! I'm glad he appears to be doing well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WifeOfSlasher

An epic dump could also point to too large of prey. But....

Yay!!!! I'm glad he appears to be doing well.

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Yes, I am aware that I badly overfed him, it was a dumb mistake on my part, I tried to feed him using the 10-15 percent rule for bps. He is doing well now, and my mistake has been corrected.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WifeOfSlasher

An epic dump could also point to too large of prey. But....

Yay!!!! I'm glad he appears to be doing well.

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Yes, that was part of the discussion at the beginning. :gj: