Another poop question

Morty (1 yo, 24" and 330g) is seemingly a happy snake.
He always stays in his cold hide to the point of pooping and peeing and still staying there. Laying in it. :rolleyes:

The last couple times he produced copious amounts of liquid and a very tiny poop. I couldn't determine if it was a diarrhea to begin with or just got... mushed. (TMI, I know!)

At what point do I start to worry? If at all?

He lives in 20G aquarium, on paper towels, 2 black hides from ReptileBasics + some vines, cold side +-77, hot side +-89, humidity +-45%. Eats F/T rat pups every 5 days, no problems.

I would try to get the cold side at 80% and humidity 50% minimum (55 - 60% is better.) Also, if feeding the appropriate sized prey, he shouldn't need to eat more than once every 7 days.

Young snakes use almost everything they eat. The last time my 3.5 month old went, it was a lot of liquid pee and a urate and the teeeeeeniest tiiiiiiiniest poop. She gets one rat pup every 7 days.

At a year, what size rat pups are you giving? What is their weight?

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Originally Posted by Yzmasmom

I would try to get the cold side at 80% and humidity 50% minimum (55 - 60% is better.) Also, if feeding the appropriate sized prey, he shouldn't need to eat more than once every 7 days.

At a year, what size rat pups are you giving? What is their weight?

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The temp gets to 80 during the day, dips to 75 at night. I raise humidity when he is "in blue" and stays in the hot hide.
According to PerfectPrey chart, their rat pups are 20-29g. I am power-feeding him till the end of this year, he will eat weaned rats (30-50g) once a week after that. I got him at 8 m weighting only 155g so he is a "catching up" mode.

Give him another hide or few, that way he can pee in one and still have a clean one at whatever temperature he wants. If he has only two and one has been peed in, he has to choose between a clean spot and a spot at the right temperature. So he picks the temperature, and sits in his mess.

Also, you can do daily spot cleanings and eliminate him having to stay curled up in waste products for any extended period of time. He will love you more for it. Lol.:D

So cool that we can have threads titled "Another Poop Question" without the need for NSFW tags. I love this place.

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

Also, you can do daily spot cleanings and eliminate him having to stay curled up in waste products for any extended period of time. He will love you more for it. Lol.:D

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Yes. First thing in the morning, clean, spot check mid day. Spot check evening. Then repeat.

I woke up this morning and my firefly had pooped and it was mushed down too. Obviously he had been laying in it. Some of them are grosser than others... my butter and my Mojave are prissy little ones. Wherever they defecate, they will go to the opposite side of the tub and just stay there until the poop-clean-up-god arrives. (Me.)


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Of course I check on him every day. Several times. And clean any kind of mess right away.
"feel insulted :weirdface

The point is not him being messy/laying in his poop but since I cannot determine the initial consistency of said poop, what will be other signs I have to look for if say it was indeed a diarrhea...

Does it makes any sense or am I looking too much into nothing?..

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

Give him another hide or few... So he picks the temperature, and sits in his mess.

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This sounds the most logical.
He has 2 hides... I'm afraid I cannot fit a 3rd one in his enclosure without moving to a bigger one.
I need to think about...

Thanks for an idea! :gj:

Mine will go inside her hot hide and stay in there. it's usually at night. I don't think twice about it. I just clean up and move on.

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Originally Posted by cletus

I don't think twice about it. I just clean up and move on.

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:oops: Yep. Since nothing is amiss I'll do just that.

I know everybody meant well! Silly me. ;)

Obviously you should always clean up messes as soon as possible, but if you check a once or twice a day, the snake could easily be sitting in its own pee for many hours. It's worth it to give them enough space so that they don't have to sit in it until you come 'round to clean.
For that matter, my BP has a variety of different types of hides and hangout spots in his enclosure, and he has fairly predictable daily habits for where he likes to hang out. He spends the day in one of the tight, secure hides with a small entrance, but in the evenings he moves into one of the open ended tubes. Overnight he climbs up to hang out in a hide on the upper shelf, and then goes back down to one of his daytime spots by morning. The fact that he has predictable patterns and different preferences at different times of day says to me that he benefits from having those choices, even outside of the fact that he doesn't have to sit in his mess.