Her "poo" is way different :/

So this morning I woke up to find a WEIRD looking poo in Baby's cage.
She is about 9 months old, and her poo was right on time, but instead of the usual white and yellow "blob" I usually find, I found a white blob, with a little yellow attached, BUT an inch or so away i found two HUGE peices of dark poo.
It looked like my terrier's poo. It was ridiculous...I asked myself-how did THIS come out of her?!...I had never seen something like it before. It was solid throughout, with a greyish inside.
I am just worried because anything "new" worries me.
Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Andrew

:rofl:

Everything is fine. You have been seeing the urates, not poo. Their poo does resemble a dog turd. They are usually a lot less frequent than the urates. If you weigh your snake frequently, you can be quite suprised how much a turd can weigh. :O

How long have you had her?

Haha! You saw her poo and didn't know it was normal... :rofl:

Yes, they have poop just like other creatures. The white and yellow is urates, which is in a sense urine.

How often are you feeding her, and what size prey?

Hehe that is funny :)

Like they have said the white stuff were solid urates. BPs have the ability to reabsorb water before excreting it, turning it from the fun smelling liquid stuff to the fun solid stuff.

that sounds like a normal snake dookie to me :P

I have had her since January of 09.
I understand the white and yellow stuff and the urates information.
But it was just alarming to see literally what looked like my dog's poo.
It was two long dark logs.
I couldn't believe it.
AND you promise this is normal?!

OH,
and I am feeding her once every two weeks,
two live mice in a row-normal size white mice.
no longer "juveniles".

Oh its normal, and it gets bigger too! Sometimes it is alarming. :D

Edit: You'll want to feed one prey item that is as thick as the thickest part of your snake, or multiple smaller items, once a week.

Completely normal.. don't worry.

Just wait till she gets bigger. You haven't seen anything yet!!

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Originally Posted by andrew123

OH,
and I am feeding her once every two weeks,
two live mice in a row-normal size white mice.
no longer "juveniles".

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Just to echo what Spaniard said... you should be feeding once per week, not once every 2 weeks. Many people here suggest feeding small snakes that are actively growing on a 5 day schedule rather than a full week. Spaniard spoke of one of two methods to decide on prey size. Another way to judge proper size is to feed roughly 10% of the snake's weight. This is how I choose to do it. Finally, multiple prey items is ok as long as the total equals the proper size for the snake (if feeding live prey, please feed one item at a time).

Steve

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Originally Posted by Demon280z

:rofl:

Everything is fine. You have been seeing the urates, not poo. Their poo does resemble a dog turd. They are usually a lot less frequent than the urates. If you weigh your snake frequently, you can be quite suprised how much a turd can weigh. :O

How long have you had her?

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I haven't had my snake very long, but it has had multiple poos but I have never seen a urate. Is that normal?

Okay thank you to all who have helped, i really appreciate it.
Now with the feeding issue,
I'm feeding her exactly how the breeder told me to feed her,
and I have had her since January. To refresh: two mice (one after the other) every other Friday. She gobbles one up, and then looks for the next one and doesn't even hesitate to snatch it.
So, I am hesitant to change that feeding habit-especially because she isn't used to it, and feeding her once a week wouldn't allow me to have a week to hold her anyways u know?
So I am unsure...
What do you think?

The white and yellow stuff would be what makes our own urine yellow in tint, and while you may never have noticed it your snake does excrete quite a bit of fluid when urinating, this will soak into whatever bedding you may have making it stink to high heaven, and that is from the ammonia. If you have shaving based bedding (aspen, cypress, etc) then you want to remove the bedding around said chunks of white and yellow, because the ammonia is actually fairly bad for your snake. If you use things like mats or sheets of newspaper then you will want to change that weekly.

As for the poo, just wait until your snake becomes constipated. When it hasn't pooped in 3 months and the feces is the same width as your snake and about an eighth of it's body length.

Well, now that I know what the white/yellow stuff is. I was always curious, just never asked. Figure it was like diarrhea or something. I knew the big brown log things were poo though. Althought I usually find 2 nice size logs of poo a week. I feed mine once a week on Friday.

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Originally Posted by andrew123

So, I am hesitant to change that feeding habit-especially because she isn't used to it, and feeding her once a week wouldn't allow me to have a week to hold her anyways u know?
So I am unsure...
What do you think?

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If we were talking about an older snake it wouldn't be so bad. Considering this snake is still in its first year it should really be feed once a week, IMO. All my snakes get fed once a week even my adults. Will the snake be ok on a 2 week schedule, sure. Might it thrive and grow as much as on a one week schedule, probably not. Its up to you to decide; I understand the handling point but to a certain extent we have to sacrifice something as well to make sure these animals are as healthy as they can be. 4 out of 7 days isn't so bad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andrew123

Okay thank you to all who have helped, i really appreciate it.
Now with the feeding issue,
I'm feeding her exactly how the breeder told me to feed her,
and I have had her since January. To refresh: two mice (one after the other) every other Friday. She gobbles one up, and then looks for the next one and doesn't even hesitate to snatch it.
So, I am hesitant to change that feeding habit-especially because she isn't used to it, and feeding her once a week wouldn't allow me to have a week to hold her anyways u know?
So I am unsure...
What do you think?

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Who is the breeder, full name or company name? I must admit, it's pretty uncommon to hear of a breeder actually recommending feeding only once every two weeks.

I am a little confused about feeding two mice. Are they adult mice? That seems like a large meal for a juvi ball python.

I can understand your hesitance, but here you are surrounded by thousands of people that love ball pythons, and a strong majority (I believe) feed weekly and recommend it. You can read this in many caresheets from very experienced and well respected ball python breeders such as NERD or VPI. :)

To ease your mind, I suspect if you began to offer her a mouse weekly, she would take it no problem. They are programmed to eat when the opportunity rises, and many believe when they are young like that, they want to grow as quickly as possible to raise their chance for survival.

If you were to feed her one mouse a week you can hold her after 48 hours have passed since you fed her. I'm not sure where you were told that you must wait a week, I imagine that is because of the large meal, but it seems unnecessary to feed her bi-weekly like that when small meals more frequently appear to keep them eating regularly and not refusing food for periods of time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oxylepy

The white and yellow stuff would be what makes our own urine yellow in tint, and while you may never have noticed it your snake does excrete quite a bit of fluid when urinating, this will soak into whatever bedding you may have making it stink to high heaven, and that is from the ammonia. If you have shaving based bedding (aspen, cypress, etc) then you want to remove the bedding around said chunks of white and yellow, because the ammonia is actually fairly bad for your snake. If you use things like mats or sheets of newspaper then you will want to change that weekly.

As for the poo, just wait until your snake becomes constipated. When it hasn't pooped in 3 months and the feces is the same width as your snake and about an eighth of it's body length.

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I've never noticed any white or yellow chucks or any other discolourastion at all, and his tank doesn't smell bad either.

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Originally Posted by van_garret2000

I've never noticed any white or yellow chucks or any other discolourastion at all, and his tank doesn't smell bad either.

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Never? Your pretty much saying your snakes has never peed or dropped an urate. :confused:

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Originally Posted by Spaniard

Hehe that is funny :)

Like they have said the white stuff were solid urates. BPs have the ability to reabsorb water before excreting it, turning it from the fun smelling liquid stuff to the fun solid stuff.

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Rich you really need a life if you think snake pee is "fun smelling" LMAO! (or you can just come over to our place and have all the snake pee you want to clean up :rofl:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andrew123

I have had her since January of 09.
I understand the white and yellow stuff and the urates information.
But it was just alarming to see literally what looked like my dog's poo.
It was two long dark logs.
I couldn't believe it.
AND you promise this is normal?!

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Yep it is and yep it will put you off ever wanting to eat Tootsie Rolls again. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by van_garret2000

I haven't had my snake very long, but it has had multiple poos but I have never seen a urate. Is that normal?

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Snakes pass urine as either liquid or solid (urates). Is your snake passing liquid urine? Does it eat regularily and have access to fresh water?

No thanks Jo, I have quite enough pee of my own to contend with in these neck of the woods :D