Help!

Yesterday I noticed something very worrisome about my 3 year old pastel ball, Banana (Banana S'mores to be exact). You know how balls have those fat parts toward the backs of their heads? Well, his are GONE. It's sort of squishy and now I am really worried about him. His weight is fine, he hasn't been losing drastic amounts (he's been fasting for the winter so he obviously hasn't been gaining any). There are loose parts of the skin where the fatter parts used to be on his head and there aren't any other areas on his body with loose skin. I have emailed the reptile vet I know with the pictures I'm going to attach to this but I wanted to know if anyone has experienced this with their ball??

Please help!

PS, his humidity is fine, as well as his tank... nothing has changed so I don't know what's going on with him!

PSS, sorry the pictures are kind of blurry... if you look hard enough you can see where it looks sunken in :(

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d2...ss/Banana1.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d2...ss/Banana2.jpg

Hard to tell but that snake looks VERY hungry to me. When did he last eat?

End of December, about the third week. I've been monitoring his weight and it is stable, which is why I'm confused. I was planning on feeding him this week anyways since that's a good fasting period but I just don't understand where this is coming from. Last year he fasted for roughly 7 months so I don't think it could be the time he's gone without food.... :confused:

The rest of his body is pretty round, it shows in my avatar picture (which was taken beginning of March)..

I hope someone else chimes in here. A seven month fast is not unheard of but... Are you offering prey every week? How about fresh water? Is he drinking?

Have you been offering food weekly during his "fast?"

Also, you say humidity ect. is fine, can you be a bit more specific?

Warm side? Cool side? Ambient? What are you using to measure temps & humidity?

Yes to fresh water and I see him drinking.. I offered food a few more times after he stopped eating around end of December (so I offered it around beginning of January) but have not through February or any in March. I am planning on getting a rat for him tonight, so we will see how that goes. I am just confused on what would cause his head to look like this.. It's almost like the muscle mass was lost but none of his muscle in his body has had atrophy or anything.

Blah, I am at a loss as to what to do. Still waiting to hear from the reptile vet..


(didn't see the humidity part til now) I have a cool and warm hide box for him and I have a temp/humidity gauge in his tank. I try to keep the humidity between 40 and 60%.

Why didn't you just offer food weekly? Can you give us a detailed description of your set up? How you heat it, how you measure heat, what he is being kept in... all the details please.

Have either of you heard of this happening before? (Or seen it?) :confused:

I think you may have hit it on the head. Those are the muscles used to eat. If he has only eaten a few times in the past few years those muscles would atrophy. I would get a live mouse or two and insist that guy ate for me pronto. Prescent, dark room, and leave him alone for a few minutes. I'll bet he will eat right away.

And we all need to keep in mind that it is not up to us to determine an "appropriate fasting period" for a python. Our responsibility is to offer prey each week and let the snake decide when to fast and when to eat.

Yeah I am going to try to feed him tonight. His behavior is fine as well, so I guess that's a good sign. It's just scary to see your ball's cute round head suddenly go to that size. I am still confused on why it would have lost the muscle mass so quick seeing as last year he didn't eat for twice as long and still maintained the muscles.

As for his tank:

30 gal tank (a little small for him, I am saving up for a bigger one); I use aspen for a substrate and clean any area he uses the bathroom in pronto (the ENTIRE area...I also clean out the entire thing every few weeks); heat lamp set on a timer (I change the timer to what photoperiod is outside); heater on side of cage near warm hide box; water bowl in the middle; measure heat using thermometer and measure humidity using a hygrometer.

I didn't offer him food every week after he stopped mainly because I mentioned it to the herpetologist I work for and he told me Banana should be fine and to offer him some food once Spring came around.

You should always offer food at least every two weeks during a fasting period.
So yeah, start offering him food asap.
What kind of thermometers are you using?

Looking at the pic, I think Banana will be just fine. Just a few changes that I can recommend (I had a bp that fasted for 6 weeks, just started eating last month).

1.) 30L is big enough for your snake. I'm guessing that's what you have - not the 30 gallon one for fish which are usually taller with a smaller floor area than a 30L for reptiles. No need to up the size.
2.) Replace the temp/humidity gauges with a digital one with probe like the Acu-Rite Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer/Hygrometer/Clock with probe. You can get this from Wal-mart for 12 bucks. Put the probe under the warm-side hide. Since you got your heater on the side of the tank, you might not be capturing the actual temperature where Banana is usually resting in. Put the Acu-Rite unit on the middle of the back wall, as close to the floor as you can. Now, your inside temps reading should be around 80-85 and your outside temps reading should be around 90-95. And the humidity should be around 50%.
3.) Offer food every week. If she eats, cool! If she doesn't, then don't worry much about it, just offer it again the next week. Are you feeding f/t? You can refreeze the food once but after that, you'll have to throw it away.

That's all I got.

I am using a digital thermometer. I forget the name of it but I know it has a tree frog on the package. :)

I will try that probe... sometimes I will bring the thermometer gun from our snake lab to make sure everything is right but the probe sounds nice..

Just for a reference, this is what his head looked like pre-shrinking:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d2...bananahead.jpg

Typical model pose :rolleyes:

* Update *

According to vet: lost muscle mass.. just feed and it will go away.

So, I officially feel better it's not anything too serious. Thanks for all the help :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samwise

* Update *

According to vet: lost muscle mass.. just feed and it will go away.

So, I officially feel better it's not anything too serious. Thanks for all the help :)

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That's good, I'm glad to hear that. Just offer Banana food once a week to regain the loss muscle mass, and he'll be just fine!:gj:

Great news!

So, yeah, keep us posted on Banana's progress. We'd like to know how she's doing. Updates with pictures after she's had a rat or two would be cool too. She's a very pretty snake!

And here's some dancing bananas for ya...
:banana::banana::banana: