Anything I'm missing on this regurg/vomit?

Hey folks,
We're 3 weeks into our first ball python and, of course, here I am asking about a regurgitation. If my understanding is right, we'd more accurately call it a vomit. This is our snake's second feeding since coming to us from the reptile store. The snake is young, 60g, and per the store was feeding on fuzzies at the store, although what they were actually feeding didn't look like fuzzies to me...they had full coats of white fur and were running all over the place, more like juveniles or small adults, and that seems perhaps a bit large to me based on circumference and a 10-15% prey-to-snake weight ratio. Normal bowel movement after the 1st feeding.

We fed our snake, didn't handle at all for 24 hours, handled briefly for a cage cleaning at ~36 hours, all seemed normal the rest of the day through bedtime (~48 hours) and then the next morning (~54 hours post feeding) came down to find ONLY some loose fur, hind legs, and a tail in the water basin of his terrarium.

His terrarium is glass 30"x12"x15", cardboard walls on 3 sides to limit his exposure, a wood hide on the warm side, a black plastic one on the cool side, 75w overhead IR light on the warm side as well as an UTH hooked up to a thermostat. Ground temperature on the warm side is consistently 80-85, with basking temperatures 90-95 by IR gun, air temperature on that side 75-80 degrees. Cool side with ground temperatures ~75 and air temperature about 71 per the room's ambient. Humidity is low right now, ~30-45% and I'm in the process of covering the lid which is mesh to better retain humidity.

The day of his feeding, so 48 hours pre-vomit, I experimented with switching his IR light to a timer so that he was only getting UTH heat at night and I noticed that the ground temperature on the cool side was ~70 degrees. During those two nights, he seemed to be preferring his cool hide, so was likely spending more time in 70s although he did come out and bask intermittently on the warm side.

His behavior up until regurgitation seemed very normal. Moved between warm and cool sides, peaked out of his hides, seemed relaxed. Since the regurgitation he had a rough 24 hours where he spent the majority of the time on his warm side, curled up on top of his wood hide and on top of a rock basking and curled up pretty tightly. Today he seems a bit more relaxed again, moving back and forth between hides intermittently, peaking his head out every so often again.

Things I've changed in the aftermath...I have a larger heat mat coming, the existing one is only 6x8 which I think is too small by the rule-of-1/3 for a 30x12 terrarium, the new one is 12x8 which is closer to the right side and should give more belly heat on the warm side. I am keeping the IR light on 24/7 so that night temperatures aren't too cold. Of course I'm not handling him at all right now. I'm giving him a food holiday through Nov 11th which will be 2 weeks from his last feeding. I'm hesitant to go longer, because I'm admittedly concerned about giving such a young snake a long interval without any food, as I mentioned, he's only 60g at this time. Next feed will be a true fuzzy, I'll aim for 4-7g.

My suspicion was that the heat lamp off at night was a bad decision on my part. The ambient in his room is 71 degrees and with the. 6x8 UTH, I think at night his warm side wasn't warm enough and his cool side in the low 70s, or possibly 60s inside his hide, was just too cold and his digestion slowed down. With the slowed digestion, with mouse still in there at 48 hours, his system vomited the remnants, hence only recovering just the hind feet and a tail with some hair. I'm hoping that bringing the heat up and not getting cool over night as well as improving the size of the UTH for better belly heat will improve things.

Thoughts, suggestions, or things you feel I'm missing or completely off base on?

Long post, but I'll give a short answer.

1. Your husbandry is off and that's probably why your BP regurgitated.

Hot side - 86-89F

Ambient - 80-84F

Cool side - 78-80F

ALL HEATING ELEMENTS MUST BE CONTROLLED BY A THERMOSTAT.

From what I can see, your hot spot is too hot and the cool side too cool for your BP digest properly. Your BP had to choose and choose too cool over too hot.

2. You are feeding the wrong prey item.

See below - you should be feeding mouse hoppers at least.

3. You need to wait to feed for 3 weeks. That's a long time for a snake that small that's already been fed the wrong food, but you don't really have a choice. You must wait that long for your BP to heal and be able to process another meal.

In the meantime, get your husbandry correct.

There's always a possibility that something is wrong with the BP, but 90% of the time, regurgitation occurs due to poor husbandry or too large a meal. The latter doesn't seem to be the case here.
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...ding_chart.jpg

Thanks so much for the reply. To clarify, while the shop called the mouse a fuzzy, by everything I see online, it was a hopper. So whatever he ate at the shop, presumably hoppers, and then the two hoppers he took at my home (well, 1.5 perhaps if I cross my fingers that he digested the majority of the mouse that didn't come up). That was why I considered stepping down to a fuzzy for the next feed, since several of the posts and topics I read suggested stepping down a size for the next feeding.

To clarify on your specific temperatures, when you say hot side and cool side, do you mean ground temperature? I ask because you also specify only a single ambient, so I'm reading that as suggesting 80-84 for the enclosure's air temperature with ground 78-80 on the cool and 86-89 on the warm side. Correct me if I'm reading incorrectly.

For temperature control, the room is individually controlled and at 72 outside the enclosure, I can obviously bring that up as necessary. The UTH is on an Inkbird set to 90 degrees but as mentioned, that's not the temperature on top of substrate. I didn't go any higher on the UTH in case he burrows and contacts the bottom.

You are welcome.

Ground temperature is 95% of the battle. You want the middle of the tank to average between 80-84F. Ambient might be the wrong word. The key is that there is a gradient. So if the hot side is 86-90F and the middle is 80-84F and the cool side is 78-80F, your BP can always find a comfortable spot whether he/she needs to digest or just wants to chill out (literally and figuratively).

Your BP will burrow if needed. If it's 90F on the heat pad where it meets the bottom of the tank, that's fine. If it's 85F above the substrate, for example, he/she will burrow to get to the warmer temps if he/she needs. It should not be above 90F anywhere your BP can reach.

Finally, I am not sure what an Inkbird is, but I am going to assume that it's a thermostat, is that correct?

If all you have is a UTH for heat, how are you keeping the cool side and middle of the tank heated?

Yes, an Inkbird is a digital thermostat, I have a probe linked to it that's connected to the underside of the glass where the UTH is so that the pad turns off when the heat exceeds 90F.

Right now, I have all the heat (the UTH and an overhead IR bulb) on the warm side so the heat on the cool side is entirely from crossover heat (i.e. as my BP gets further towards the cool side, he's further away from heat sources and the temperature falls). The IR bulb is a 75W which I'm planning to step down to a 60W since the warm side does seem pretty uniformly in the high 80s or low 90s. The bulb is the only thing not on a thermostat/rheostat.

With the adjustments I've made today (insulating the top), the air temperature on the warm side is now 92, too hot, but the air temperature on the cool side is more acceptable at 79. Ground temperature on the warm side is steadily 87-91 measured by IR gun, including inside his hide where it's 88. Ground temperatures on the cool side get as low as 70F, but that might rise since the air temperature there is now 78. With the new UTH pad I have coming, it will extend just a bit further across the floor of the tank.

Do you find it's a better set up to have two different UTH each linked to their own thermostat so one can heat the "cool" end and one heats the "warm"? I hadn't seen that in my research, most folks seemed to recommend heating one side and letting distance define the cooling side.

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Originally Posted by tempo36

Do you find it's a better set up to have two different UTH each linked to their own thermostat so one can heat the "cool" end and one heats the "warm"? I hadn't seen that in my research, most folks seemed to recommend heating one side and letting distance define the cooling side.

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UTH only warm the ground above them, they do not warm the air. What you say above is true for well insulated enclosures, like PVC tanks, such as Boaphile, AP, etc. In a glass tank with a screen top, this is less of the case. However, most PVC enclosures, when the room temp is well below what the average temp in the tank needs to be, or even the cool side, will use a Radiant Heat Panel (RHP) to heat both the hot spot/hot side and the air in the enclosure.

You probably want a Ceramic Heat Emitter (CHE) to both warm the middle of the tanks both air and ground. In this instance, you will almost definitely not need a second UTH. I would consider a CHE for the hot side/middle area. You need to run that off a thermostat as well IMO, although some people use a dimmer and/or a low wattage CHE. I say get a good thermostat now that can run two devices because down the road you will need that anyway when you upgrade your BP's tank, hopefully to something more suited to a BP that keeps heat and humidity in better.

Again, thanks for the advice.

OK, so what I'm going to try is a dual device thermostat (Inkbird ITC-608T), one output to control the UTH and one to control a CHE. Right now, the thermostats I can afford are On/Off as opposed to adaptive. Do you see this as being a problem with a CHE? My understanding of CHE is that they take a while to warm up and cool down, so if it's cycling on and the temperature hits the high end, it will shut off but continue to radiate heat a while, once it's cool, the temperatures are going to slowly creep back down at which point it will kick on again but will take some time to come back up to temperature. To me, that yo-yo of heat seems problematic, and moreso because of the CHE, but I'm not sure how to get around it without a significantly more expensive thermostat that can modulate at the wattage level rather than simply On/Off (and certainly if you know of a thermostat that modulates wattage that's less expensive than a herpstat, I'm all ears!)

Answered my own question on that one...pulse or proportional thermostats only. I guess a Vivarium VE-300x2 it is and we'll cross our fingers.

So the VE-300x2 is set up linked to the UTH and the CHE. Current temperatures are:

Air (hot): 88F (by air probe linked to the VE)
Basking: 94F (by IR)
Air (cold) 80F (by air probe)
Ground (cold) ~75F (by IR)

UTH heat set to 89F also linked to the VE

So I feel like my basking temperatures are perhaps a bit high, but that's where the CHE puts them in order to bring the air temperature up to 88. I feel like ground temperature on cold side is still low, but I'm much happier with the air temperature over there at ~80. I'm not sure how one would adjust things in order to cool the basking area without cooling the air as well. Suggestions? Or am I getting close enough where my BP should be able to move himself around between hides in a way that he can find what he needs?

Of note, he IS moving himself right now between cool and warm hides. I usually find him in the cool hide in the AM and much of the day and then moved to the warm side in the evening and at night. I haven't caught him drinking which worries me, I feel like his spine is showing a bit more than I'd like, but I also know it's a tenuous place to be in to have a young snake fasting after a vomiting episode.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tempo36

So the VE-300x2 is set up linked to the UTH and the CHE. Current temperatures are:

Air (hot): 88F (by air probe linked to the VE)
Basking: 94F (by IR)
Air (cold) 80F (by air probe)
Ground (cold) ~75F (by IR)

UTH heat set to 89F also linked to the VE

So I feel like my basking temperatures are perhaps a bit high, but that's where the CHE puts them in order to bring the air temperature up to 88. I feel like ground temperature on cold side is still low, but I'm much happier with the air temperature over there at ~80. I'm not sure how one would adjust things in order to cool the basking area without cooling the air as well. Suggestions? Or am I getting close enough where my BP should be able to move himself around between hides in a way that he can find what he needs?

Of note, he IS moving himself right now between cool and warm hides. I usually find him in the cool hide in the AM and much of the day and then moved to the warm side in the evening and at night. I haven't caught him drinking which worries me, I feel like his spine is showing a bit more than I'd like, but I also know it's a tenuous place to be in to have a young snake fasting after a vomiting episode.

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Don't be so worried about the air temp.

Basking spot should be no more than 90F.

If you have to move the CHE closer to the cool side to get the cool side up, that's fine as long as the UTH provides a good ground temp.

You are the right track though.

I moved him last week to a small 6L tub to help with his security and temperatures. Small flower pot hide, water bowl, UTH. It's 55-60% humidity and UTH has the bottom of the hide at exactly 90 for 1/3 the bottom of the tub, air temperatures 75-85 across the gradient. But he refused a 5g live fuzzy last night and his weight is down to 50g. Not sure what else to do :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tempo36

I moved him last week to a small 6L tub to help with his security and temperatures. Small flower pot hide, water bowl, UTH. It's 55-60% humidity and UTH has the bottom of the hide at exactly 90 for 1/3 the bottom of the tub, air temperatures 75-85 across the gradient. But he refused a 5g live fuzzy last night and his weight is down to 50g. Not sure what else to do :(

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Not sure I'd have moved him to a different set-up...that alone is scary, disorienting & can put a snake off-feed. But he's there now, so I hope it works out for him.
This is why we nag everyone to set up & actually test their enclosures for at least a week before any creature moves in- it's stressful for them when you have to re-do things & they're still afraid of you on top of the fact that "their world" keeps inexplicably changing.

It wasn't my first choice either, but based on the reading I'd done, including some of the stickies here, a 30G terrarium seemed too large for a 60g baby. For what it's worth, the reptile store I purchased him from talked me into the larger terrarium and as a new owner I didn't argue the point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tempo36

It wasn't my first choice either, but based on the reading I'd done, including some of the stickies here, a 30G terrarium seemed too large for a 60g baby. For what it's worth, the reptile store I purchased him from talked me into the larger terrarium and as a new owner I didn't argue the point.

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I understand. And that's a very common situation, btw- listening to & believing the retail sales pitches- most stores put profits way ahead of expertise, if they even have expertise. Many don't.

As Bogertophis said, what's done is done.

Absolutely leave him alone for a week and then offer again.

Did we go over the steps of properly defrosting and offering prey? If not, I will post.

If so, just follow those steps and offer again in a week.

No taking him out. Leave him be.

If he doesn't take the F/T you might have to offer live to get him going again. That's a last resort, but honestly, you are getting close to that.

I've never used f/t on him because the reptile shop that sold him to me said he'd only taken live prey to that point and I wanted to first get him to take food in his new home before I tried to transition him to f/t. Unfortunately, by timeline he arrived here at ~60g on Oct 17th, took a small adult and fully digested it on 10/22, took another small adult on 10/28 but vomited up the hindlegs on 10/31. Since then he was rested until 11/11 and has refused live large-fuzzy or small hoppers on November 12th and 19th. He's down to 50g and has noticeable wrinkling along the last 1/3 of his body length.

The only handling has been when I needed to refill with clean water. Otherwise he's in his tub which is in a terrarium and is in a room out of the way so gets no foot traffic.

At this point I'm fine with any feeding option, but I feel like at 50g he's dangerously low weight. He seems very chill in his tub. Spends some time in his hide, some time outside his hide.

I thought I'd give up update on how this whole situation ended up playing out...

I kept the little fellow, Joe, in his 6L tub until mid-to-late February and he still wouldn't eat despite various trials of f/t and live prey. He bottomed out at around 50g and got relatively dehydrated. I ended up being put in touch with a snake and reptile breeder who walked me through the process, and over the course of November through January did 5 assist feeds. We'd wait a couple weeks, offer food, if refused, he got an assist and then we'd go back into waiting to see if his appetite would kick in. His weight stabilized and he gained a little bit back up to the 70g range but still would not take food on his own. At that point, I was noticing that he was spending most of his time being active in his tub and trying to leave, despite temperature and humidity being right on. I decided to take a chance and moved him to a 15L tub and gave him a couple weeks during which he seemed more calm.

At this point it was March, he hadn't had an assist feed in ~8 weeks.

His next food offering in the 15L tube was a f/t weaned rat which he refused but I tried being a bit aggressive, which I had tried before without success, bopping him a bit with the rat to try and prompt a strike, and he got the idea and struck. He had no idea what to do with the rat though at that point and got very worked up, poking it with his nose a lot but seemingly clueless beyond that. Using tongs I moved the rat and it was very clear he wasn't going to let it leave the tub, biting onto it and wrapping it up immediately. Rinse and repeat for about 30 minutes...confusedly poke at rat, move rat, bite and wrap, poke, move rat, wrap, etc. Eventually he figured it out and swallowed all on his own. The breeder wanted me to take things slowly to acclimate him to eating and to keep him a little hungry to stimulate feeding, so 2 weeks later I tried another feed, which he took instantly as soon as he saw it come into the tub. Similar poking and wrapping, but he figured things out sooner than the prior time and got everything down. Unfortunately, about 72 hours later and completely undisturbed, he threw it up into his water dish while shedding. Lesson learned there...the rat was probably a bit too big on the weight side for him, despite his ability to swallow it, and I think I need to be very careful with this snake to not feed around shed time as right now he just does not like uncomfortable stimuli when digesting! He went back on food holiday for a few weeks to let his system rest, but now we're back to the "new normal".

He's taken 4 consecutive feeds from early April to present. No more poking, wrapping, poking, etc...he strikes and swallows and is now steadily, albeit slowly, putting on weight, up at 95g. He finally had a complete shed with no retained parts this last week during which I skipped his feeding to make sure he could focus on his skin, and ate again 72 hours ago.

I'm cautiously optimistic that we made it through this learning period and he's figuring out how to do the things he needs to do as a snake! Maybe by next year I'll have gotten over the trauma of the last 6 months to even consider a 2nd ball since this one technically belongs to my daughter!

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach....com/a/NngOpJn
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach....com/a/qyNeKu6https://imgur.com/a/qyNeKu6

https://imgur.com/a/NngOpJn



https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach....com/a/NngOpJn

Almost one year anniversary for Joe...291g, eating very readily every week. We'll see if he has a winter fast...

Thanks all for the encouragement during our initial difficult time!
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Quote:

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Originally Posted by tempo36

Almost one year anniversary for Joe...291g, eating very readily every week. We'll see if he has a winter fast...

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What an enjoyable outcome to this thread. And what a pretty little guy he is. Interesting pattern with the alien heads too :gj:

Whilst still growing, and now an established eater, if he does decide to fast, it shouldn't be for long.

I have a small collection of BP's all of which I've had since snakelets and only 2 have given me a winter fasting worry with the longest being two months. The others have maintained their food eagerness throughout as youngsters.

The adults I have, one has only gone off her feed whilst building (as expected), and my oldest male has gone up to 6 months (last season), which, although you know the score, is still a worry. They enjoy making you worry. I'm sure of it :rofl:

Congrats on getting him through, as I said earlier, he's looks really nice.

Good looking BP. I’m glad he’s eating well for you now.

:D Happy Anniversary! :gj: