First BP, need some serious help.

[Cutebunnyirl]

First off, my normal vet is closed, I don't even know if they treat snakes, but there's an exotic vet downtown I'm calling in the morning.

Okay, with that out of the way, hello, first time BP owner, love my Tim(my little Enchi BP). Not 100% sure about his age I got him from a friend at work, he came to me super healthy, nice and thick, strong wrapping himself around my wrist and fingers, good snake, felt like a good animal bright and curious. She gave me 3 rats to take home, told me to get a 50gal tank, either paper towels or carpeting(absolutely no substrate), two hides, a UTH, dimmer switch, temp and humidity monitor and a big bowl for his water. Okay! No problem! Went through two monitors but finally got one that worked. Sent her photos of his habitat, she loved it felt good about everything. Asked when I should feed him, she tells me leave him alone for a couple weeks, it won't hurt him to miss a meal, okay no problem. I picked him up 11/27 and offered him one rat a week after that, he wouldn't take it for ANYTHING. That's okay, I'll try again at another time. Saturday the 12th he took a rat, missed his first strike, but got it the second time. The friend told me he didn't like it wiggled and to just set it down in front of him. Huzzah! He eats! I watched him eat, he spent 45 minutes struggling to find the nose but he found it eventually, as I was watching him eat I got a little worried that the rat might've been too big, thought about trying to take it back, thought that was stupid, didn't remember the rat being that big when I pulled it out of the freezer maybe it expanded when I heated it up by pouring hot water over it in a plastic bag. I asked her, she told me the rats she gave me were okay. Alright, fine I'll stop worrying. Read to leave the snake alone and not handle him for 2-3 days after eatting, okay I can do that too. Slid him very gently from his feeding container back into his tank after he ate. As far as I could tell the rat was way down into midsection and all went well. He slithered happily off to his bigger hide on top of the UTH and I went to sleep.

Kept peeking at him through the hole on his big hide over the next couple days, changing his water out everyday, noticed a strange smell, at first thought it was my dogs, bathed them but smell was still there, searched everywhere but finally ended up at his cage. It. Was. Awful. Smelled like death, was immediately terrified he'd died somehow, so I went and grabbed a plastic container and pulled up his big tree hide and found him laying half on top of a puddle vaguely resembling a rat and a big bulge in his throat.

PANIC ENSUED.

Picked him up as gently as I could, set him in his container, called the friend and she came over immediately. I cleaned his cage out, scrubbed everything, the carpeting is hung in the bathroom drying and she has him and is feeling the big lump in his throat. There's brown grey sludge coming up out of his throat and she's taking ear swabs and cleaning it up with a flashlight in her mouth trying to see what's in there, she thinks it's a skull or bone fragments. Next thing I know she has tweezers, his mouth way open and is slowly pulling shards of bone out of his throat. He is clearly unhappy but after five minutes she gets the bulge of I'm guessing rot out of his throat and cleans him up. I had put paper towels as flooring in his cage while the carpeting dries and she dips his chin in his water bowl and sets him down. Tim drank for five minutes and then scurried off to his UTH hide.

She has no idea why he threw up or how stuff got stuck in his throat, says he felt dehydrated, skin loose a little, but it wasn't life threatening and to just keep an eye on him. She says maybe the rat I gave him was too big, she'll give me smaller ones next time but is still really confused.

So, my question to you guys, was what she did pulling the stuff out of his throat okay? And any idea what happened? Was his rat too big? I'm crazy worried.

I was too busy panicing to take a picture of him with his throat bulge but I do have a photo of when I got him, him eatting the rat and then after his whole ordeal.






https://i.imgur.com/uQ0z0kV.jpg (This ended up being a huge picture)

[BCS]

WTH... there was bones in his throat. That is super unusual. Definitely a vet visit. The rat does look big for him. The prey you feed him should be the same size of the fattest part of his belly. This could cause regurgitation. But so can feeding outside of a tub. Feed him in his enclosure. It is stressful for them to be moved after feeding and can cause regurgitation.

[LittleTreeGuy]

Unless your friend is a trained vet, I wouldn't let her swab or put tweezers in the snakes mouth. Nature has a way with dealing with these things, I'm a believer that something like that, it's best to let the snake do it's thing. That may be wrong, but fighting a snake to get into its mouth like that may end up doing more harm than good vs just letting him be for a while.

You should take him to a vet and explain all of this. You should probably wait at least a week before feeding again to let him heal from this ordeal. Then give him something smaller, as mentioned above. Best of luck to you though.

[redshepherd]

How much does he weigh right now, and what size rats were you feeding him?

I'd take him to a reptile vet, and I personally wouldn't continue asking this friend for advice/approval (even just based on her husbandry suggestions and actions). That rat looks WAY too large for him, and large prey can cause regurgitation. But that there were bones stuck in his throat sounds scary!

I would even wait 2 full weeks before offering food again, and see what the reptile vet says.

Be sure that the exotic vet is specifically experienced with snakes too... Some vets might say that they'll look at your ball python, but they don't actually know what they're doing or talking about.

[Yodawagon]

What are your temps at? If they are too low they can't digest properly. What kind of carpet are you using. Carpet is typically frowned upon for floor covering. Stick to paper towels. 50 gallons for such a little snake seems too big. Rat looked a little big.

[FranklinMorphs]

I'm on board with the rat being too large as well, looks like a small rat with a 2015 ball pyton, and that would definitely be pushing it by quite a bit. Although from your description, it had the rat much further down it's tract before going back into it's main enclosure, and threw it back up, partially processed, with the skull getting stuck while coming back up. It could regurgitate just because of excess mass and being unable to work it through. But most likely causes of regurge as far as I know are being too cool, or being heavily stressed. When cool, they can't digest properly, and instead of the rat going bad inside them, they just give up and throw it up. When stressed, a snake will rapidly regurge it's last meal so that it's not hindered in trying to escape the stressor(predator in nature).

[Ax01]

whoa! your BP looks super thin. i can see it's spine in that last pix. here I resized it for ya:



i agree, get smaller food for your BP. i would also recommend feeding him every 4-5 days so he put on some size.

[Cutebunnyirl]

Thank you for the replies! He is going to the vet in 3 hours! I will give an update when I get home from work.

His cage temps vary, his hot spot with the UTH is generally between 88 and 92, I regulate it often, although I'm going to purchase a temp controller off Amazon this afternoon. His cool side never drops below 77(I have that side of the tanks bottom exposed to air) I have a seperate low powered UTH on that side. Ambient temps are usually mid 80s, humidity has never dropped below 56% when I've looked at it.

I'm going to wait awhile to feed him again, or take the vets advice probably both. I was told the max tank size a full grown BP would need is a 50gal so I got that right to give him lots of room to grow and so I wouldn't need to upgrade in the future. The only stressor I can think of, since I've handled him maybe twice since I got him and only to move him to a feeding container is there's a lamp over his cage I turn on during the day, don't know if that would do anything.

[LittleTreeGuy]

It's good he's going to the vet.

Although it sounds odd, having a smaller snake in a large tank can cause them stress. Think about it this way... in the wild, they will live in old rabbit holes and similair places. Very tight, close quarters. They instinctually prefer the same type of space in captivity. While it's not as fun for us to look at and see them, it's what is best for them. Having said that, I'd say the tank you have can still work for now. Maybe get a few more hides in there, some fake plants/vines would help also. Anything that will make it feel like a smaller, tighter space to the snake. That will help him feel more protected and relaxed. It's hard to tell the snake's size but from the picture, it looks to be maybe just a tad larger than mine. I would say it's prey could be around an adult mouse or maybe a rat pup. Hopefully the vet will give you a weight, and some feeding recommendations.

[Stormy]

whoa! your BP looks super thin. i can see it's spine in that last pix. here I resized it for ya:



i agree, get smaller food for your BP. i would also recommend feeding him every 4-5 days so he put on some size.

I agree with this^^^ I would let his stomach settle then offer a rat pup every 5 days to get some weight on him. As far as any medical issues I would only trust a qualified vet and not the previous owner.