Snake is acting odd

Brenna our 4 foot long ball, has been acting funny this morning. Shes been rubbing her face along side her water dish and opening her mouth like shes trying to scratch an itch or something else. She has been doing this for over an hour this morning. Ive attached a vid of her doing this its only about 15 seconds long, but shes doing the same thing over and over.
http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...03-07_0913.jpg

She has me abit worried, and our local herp vet is gone for a cpl of weeks.

when was the last time she shed??? i have caught acouple of my snakes doing this to start shedding.

Have you fed her recently, mine does this sometimes to "realign" her jaw after a particularly big meal.

*just being silly here* perhaps she's fallin in love with her water dish? and is serenading it? :giggle:

i would think she may be going into shed. how do her eyes look today?

She last shed Jan 20th , she hasnt eatin in about a week or so, her next feed is in a cpl of days.Its not time for her to shed so to speak, and shes not showing any signs of getting ready to shed.

I know my corn snake the other night was doing this. He was about to shed and already had part of the shed peeled off his lower jaw.

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

*just being silly here* perhaps she's fallin in love with her water dish? and is serenading it? :giggle:

i would think she may be going into shed. how do her eyes look today?

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Her eyes are clear. I did catch her on her back a few days go, and I read some place that when they are laying on their backs it could be a sign of ovulating(spelling?), dunno. She just has me stumped. Her temps and humidity are good, her hot side could be a cpl of degrees warmer, its at 90 rt now humidity at 66%.

well giving us the low down on the entire setup often helps. how many hides, exact temps on both sides... what do you use for heat...

cause otherwise, i'm stumped. http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../sign02021.gif

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

well giving us the low down on the entire setup often helps. how many hides, exact temps on both sides... what do you use for heat...

cause otherwise, i'm stumped. http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1.../sign02021.gif

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She is in a 40 gallon breeder tank, she has 2 hides one on each side of her tank, on the cool side she has the half igloo plastic one, on the hot side she has a plastic half log, newspaper for substrate, 2 water dishes one filled with water and the other empty, she likes to lay in the empty one alot. Her temps are on the cool side is 82 humidity 70%, on the hot side its 90 and humidity 66%, for heat I have a uth and a heat bulb rated at 75 watts, its the red one, the uth is for a 40 gallon tank. I have damp paper towels on the hot side to help aid humidity and a wet hand towel laying on the screen covered with a dry towel to also help with humidity.It covers about 2/3rds of the top from the cool side to just over the hot side.

mites? RI?

I have heard you need to be very careful of mold and bactieria(sp?) when using a damp towel on top of the cage. Since air jsut filters through it.

In the video it almost looked liek she was trying to regurgitate. I have only seen this once tho so I'm no expert. have you looked to make sure nothing is stuck in her mouth?

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Originally Posted by longviewbplover

She is in a 40 gallon breeder tank, she has 2 hides one on each side of her tank, on the cool side she has the half igloo plastic one, on the hot side she has a plastic half log,

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try to change the hides to be identical, small-tight (so your snake can feel it's body touching the top and sides) and completely enclosured except for the opening to get in and out. the igloo would work IF it's small enough... ball pythons often will choose a favorite hide over proper thermoregulating - which is why two identical ones are needed.

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newspaper for substrate, 2 water dishes one filled with water and the other empty, she likes to lay in the empty one alot. Her temps are on the cool side is 82 humidity 70%, on the hot side its 90 and humidity 66%, for heat I have a uth and a heat bulb rated at 75 watts, its the red one, the uth is for a 40 gallon tank. I have damp paper towels on the hot side to help aid humidity and a wet hand towel laying on the screen covered with a dry towel to also help with humidity.It covers about 2/3rds of the top from the cool side to just over the hot side.

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she can't lay on those can she? cause that could cause problems.

other than the hide issue... i don't know why she's acting like this... perhaps stress??? i would definitely change the hides and see if that makes a difference... and i'd also remove the extra water dish cause she may be choosing it over thermoregulating and - becoming stressed because of it.

sorry to not be of more assistance.

Ive been watching her pretty much since I got up this morning and everytime she does it I try to look in her mouth, from the times I was able to see inside I dont see anything in her mouth. I don't think shes going to upchuck, she ate about aweek ago maybe a little longer then a week ago. She had a small plump rat last sat. nite. Im guessing her belly is prolly empty by now, her feeding pattern is roughly feed every ten days.So her next feed should be monday nite.

I added the igloo hide last nite as something she might like because it only has one opening unlike the half log. She was checking it out and crawling over it went inside a few times. She could be stressed out, we just moved her into the new tank the other night. She can crawl on the paper towels if she wants to I guess, I have them in the corner of the tank.

You should probably take her out of the tank and check her over very carefully. It sounds to me like she's either got something stuck in her mouth, OR she has a respiritory infection. If she's getting mucus building up she may be rubbing against stuff to try and get it out of her mouth. Or...maybe she had something stuck at some point in the past and has since been disloged (so you won't see it) but it caused a small injury that is now getting infected and causing this behavior.


Any of these really require you to get her OUT of the tank and look her over yourself to get more information about what's going on with her...rather than just trying to watch her through the glass. AND then a trip to the vet as quickly as you can. Whether its a mouth infection or an RI, she will need veterinary treatment to get over it.

I think an RI is the most likely culprit...but the other things I've mentioned are possibilities as well. Good luck with her!

How would I check her mouth? How can I get her to open her mouth without hurting her or freaking her out to badly?

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Originally Posted by longviewbplover

How would I check her mouth? How can I get her to open her mouth without hurting her or freaking her out to badly?

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The procedure would be to grip her gently but firmly behind the head and use the soft end of a small rubber spatula (not the kind used for flipping pancakes, but the sort used for scraping batter out of a bowl) to pry her mouth open. (A second person to help hold and support her body during this would be a big bonus)

However, if you're not confident about doing that, you can at least get her out and look at her up close. Maybe she'll "yawn" while you're holding her. And you can listen to her breathe. If she's dealing with mucus, it will cause breathing noises like wheezing and popping.

Either way...it sounds to me like you need a vet to help you:

http://www.arav.org/USMembers.htm

http://www.anapsid.org/vets/index.html#vetlist

I was able to get her mouth open, and it looks like she may have a little bit of mucus in her mouth, I didn't hear any wheezing today but I did her hear what I thought was wheezing the other day, but wasn't sure. I found a vet open today( an hour from me) but she is worth the drive in to La. to get her all better. We have an apt. for 3 pm today. IM gonna take all 3 of my BP's to make sure the other 2 are ok also. I dunno if RI is contagious or not but I wanna make sure everyone is ok while Im there instead of waiting and it be too late.

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Originally Posted by longviewbplover

I was able to get her mouth open, and it looks like she may have a little bit of mucus in her mouth, I didn't hear any wheezing today but I did her hear what I thought was wheezing the other day, but wasn't sure. I found a vet open today( an hour from me) but she is worth the drive in to La. to get her all better. We have an apt. for 3 pm today. IM gonna take all 3 of my BP's to make sure the other 2 are ok also. I dunno if RI is contagious or not but I wanna make sure everyone is ok while Im there instead of waiting and it be too late.

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Sounds like a good plan! It's always comforting to hear of snake keepers willing to go to all the time, effort and expense to really take care of their animals!

Be sure to put each snake in its own bag for the trip. A pillowcase turned inside out and tied very securely at the top should be fine. Ideally, you'd want each snake-bag in a separate carrying case or box to help keep the probable healthy ones quarantined from the possible sick one.

Good luck!!

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Originally Posted by JLC

Be sure to put each snake in its own bag for the trip. A pillowcase turned inside out and tied very securely at the top should be fine. Ideally, you'd want each snake-bag in a separate carrying case or box to help keep the probable healthy ones quarantined from the possible sick one.

Good luck!!

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Thanks! Each snake has his/her own carrying case lined with newspaper. Brenna likes to ride in my wife's lap, so she may hold her all the way to the vet. I'll be sure to let you know how she's doing when we get home from the vet.

That was my first thought too, Judy, as soon as I read constantly rubbing her mouth on the dish. Sounds to me like she's trying to clear her mouth of mucus (I haven't even viewed the video yet).


Glad to hear you're going to get her seen!

Edit - ok, seen the video now - I definitely think that she's trying to clear her mouth of mucus. Let us know how it goes!

Got back from the vet here jsut a lil bit ago.Brenna is doing fine, vet thinks she may have the starting of an RI, she checked her lungs said they sounded good, but wanted to give her a shot of antibiotics , just in case. So Brenna got her shot( and she was not happy about it) and the vet sent us home with some pills to give her in 3 days. I went ahead and had my other 2 snakes looked at and all is good with them. We wanted to have all of them checked for internal parasites, but since we didn't have fresh stools, wasn't able to do that. The vet sent us home with some meds to give them for internal parasites and to give them a dose when we got home and a dose again in 2 weeks. She told us that it wouldnt hurt them to give it to them if they didnt have any, and if they did it would clear them of them.
So everyone is home back in their own tanks resting after a long trip to the vets and back home.

So, did the vet do a culture to test for an RI, or just listen to the lungs? What oral med did she give? I've read here from others that oral meds are not efficiently absorbed in ball pythons.


Hopefully someone with more experience in the treatments of RI's, (Becky? Adam?) will chime in here.

The vet gave us Baytril 22.7 mg. Give 0.25 tablet twice weekly, use until gone. She did tell us that normally they would have the snake owner come back in for the snake to get a shot, but since we live in texas and the vet is in Shreveport,La. which is a lil over an hour from my house, she gave us the pills to give Brenna. Told us to crush them up and give them to her with a syrenge(spelling?). I guess I will crush them up and put them in some water and give it to her that way. Unless someone can give a better idea.