Still has a food bulge after a week?

[brobertson]

My boy Kevin has been doing some weird things lately. First, he had a regurge-like thing about a week ago, which was 99% hair. He had had a bit if a bulge from food when I gave him the adult mouse 10 days ago, but it has not diminished very much. Here is his basic timeline from the past 3 weeks. 1/17 FT hopper, maybe 10-15 grams, still in QT. 1/22 he moved out of 10 gallon QT and i to 41 qt rack 1/24 FT adult mouse 20 grams (he weighed 180 grams before this feeding) 1/31 ft adult mouse 2/2 weird regurge thing, more like a hairball .Today he still has this interestingly large bump, I put off his scheduled feeding this week to let him recover. Here are the bulge pics


And regurge pics if you didn't see my other thread


What is going on? Temps in both my QT and regular have been spot on (90 hot 80 cool) and the prey size hasn't been unreasonable, although a bit bigger than he was used to. Help please!

[DooLittle]

Boas temps "technically" should be a few degrees warmer than that. Like 82 ish ambient, and 92-94 ish hot spot. Also, their metabolism is much slower. They shouldn't be fed anything that will leave a noticeable lump. They also should only eat every 7-10 days. So warm him up, and smaller prey next time, and proper time between meals. Keep an eye on him, and let us know what happens.


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[Daybreaker]

Honestly (IMO) he shouldn't still have a bulge, and with his regurge thing he coughed up I'm wondering if there may be something else going on with him health wise.
Your temps are what I keep my boas at (I do keep them cooler than my balls at the same 90 hot spot you have and their ambient temps are actually cooler, around 79/80 and I haven't had any problems: I keep my Argentines a little cooler than that even) and I've never had any of my boas retain a bulge as long as your guy.
I'd wait to feed until it's totally gone, feed something smaller than usual like DooLittle said, and put him on a 10 day schedule to see if that helps him. He may just digest slower if your husbandry is spot on, but keep an eye on him.

[DooLittle]

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[Evenstar]

Agreed. 10 day feeding schedule - although I would wait until that bulge is completely gone and/or he poops for you before feeding again - even if its another 2 weeks. Boas have a much slower metabolism so it won't hurt him at all to wait that long between meals. Even if he only regurged hair, a regurge of any kind is still a regurge. Proceed with caution.

What sticks out to me is this: he was fed an adult mouse on 1/24 and again on 1/31 - one week apart. That normally would be fine, but I fear an adult mouse was simply too large a prey item for him twice in a row and he couldn't handle it. When you DO feed again, don't do anything larger than a hopper and I'd stick to that size or maybe weanlings for a couple more months until he's a) put on some size and b) has stopped the regurging 100%.

Incidentally, I also keep my boas at cooler temps than my balls. 76 ambient and 88 hotspot.

[brobertson]

UPDATE! I woke up this morning to a monstrous dump. Kevin pooped more than my 700 gram bee sometimes does!
Definitely learned my lesson, he is back down to hoppers on a 10 day schedule for now! Thanks everybody! And because I was so glad to see him back to normal, pics!

An appropriate sized prey item!


Thanks for all the help everybody

[Evenstar]

Good for you and Kevin!!! Glad to hear it - and he's looking mighty fine now!

[DooLittle]

Yay Kevin! And for epic dumps, lol.

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[WifeOfSlasher]

An epic dump could also point to too large of prey. But....

Yay!!!! I'm glad he appears to be doing well.

[brobertson]

An epic dump could also point to too large of prey. But....

Yay!!!! I'm glad he appears to be doing well.

Yes, I am aware that I badly overfed him, it was a dumb mistake on my part, I tried to feed him using the 10-15 percent rule for bps. He is doing well now, and my mistake has been corrected.