How to Soak

Im gonna soak my ball tonight to help get things moving. She still has a large lump though. I fed her a larger than normal meal on thursday, she should be done digesting by now. Its been 4 days now since I fed it to her.

Get things moving?

In 25 years I've never had to soak a single ball python in order to "get things moving". Did you know that ball pythons can go months without moving their bowels?

Your ball python will most likely deficate with his/her next shed.

-adam

Get a tight lidded container and put warmish water in there - not so deep that the snake has to swim - I also like to put a paper towel in there for something to rub on/traction. Let the snake soak about an hour. You can set the container in the normal enclosure.

-can't low humidity cause constipation? It's true though, lots of my snakes don't poo that often at all.

SUPERVISED - you can "swim" her for a little bit - put her in a shallow bathtub of lukewarm-warm water, and let her swim around for a bit...we're talking 5-10 minutes max, if that, and yes, watch her the whole time.

If you just want to soak her, put her in a rubbermaid in a shallow soak. By shallow I mean a little bit of water, no more than 1/3 of the way up her sides. It should seem more like a puddle than a swimming pool. Often that is more than enough. You do not want to make an unsupervised snake swim - they can tire out and drown...shallow water will often do the trick. Put her in a spot where she won't catch a chill & let her sit for a few hours or even overnight.

HTH!

K~

LOL!!!! That's a 3-fer!

And yes, Adam is right...it's not necessary to soak.

But if you feel the need to get "hands on" so to speak...there you go!

K~

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shelby

-can't low humidity cause constipation?

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dehydration more than low humidity, but it's not really a common problem with ball pythons that are eating regularly.

-adam

So should I just stay hands off till I get her to the vet. This is making me nervous now. I cant get her into the vet till thursday which is feeding day, would it be ok to feed her the same day, or should I wait till sunday. Which is the day that I wanted to start feeding on anyway.

Skip the feeding that week and just feed on your usual day the next week. Try to AVOID handling a ball python 48 hrs. after feeding at all costs. You dont want to trigger a regurg.

I feed on thursdays and handle on sunday nights at the earliest. I got her out last night to handle and something didn't feel right so i just put her back.

Why take her to the vet? This isn't an emergency situation. Leave her alone...make sure her temps are correct...no worries!

Ok, I wont take her, but I'm going to be watching her like a hawk. The large lump has me concerned. Heres some pics of it.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...y51/snake4.jpg http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...y51/snake3.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...y51/snake2.jpg http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...y51/snake1.jpg

Did you feel it and does it feel like a hard lump in there? If so, it may be a dried out poop, or urates. Soak her, then if it doesn't come out see if you can GENTLY massage it out.

I soaked her tonight. It was real quick only 5 min. She looks better now than she did. The lump is gone for the most part and it looks like she put on some weight with that last feeding. I did examine her and I couldn't feel any hard lumps. She is starting a shed cycle though. Her belly is starting to pink up and she seemed shyer than usual. I couldn't see into her eyes very well, but hopefully they start bluing up. The one bad thing is the last couple days when I picked her up or sometimes touched her, she made sort of a squeek noise. At first it was a squeek, but now its sort of a whistle almost.

Some snakes whistle as they go into shed. The 'bluing' we see is fluid going in the skin to loosed the outer layer, it sometimes changes the shape of the nostrils and causes a whistle. If the whistle doesn't go away after the shed, take her to the vet.

on a lump related story, Rorschach had a fairly large sized lump in front of his tail a while ago. Last night i was handeling him, letting him go through my hands while i watched tv in bed. i was playing with his tail for a while and all of a sudden i heard a fart-like sound followed like a liquid hitting my comforter like sound. I sat up slowly and put my arm out over the floor {the arm with Ror}. His tail was just dangling there for a second then came out four very good size loads. I guess I know why he didn't want to eat!