Push face, audible exhalation, spit on cage doors

[jmcrook]

Thanks for the detailed replies Sauzo. I'll probably try large rats weekly or graduate to jumbos if she still gets antsy around the 5th day. Also as Gio said, hopefully once she's in a 6' cage she'll calm down with more climbing options to explore.
Didn't even really think about the differences between Wallace and Caesars feeding schedule with a pretty similar growth rate. For that matter, I've fed Phyllis maybe a bit lighter than Caesar and she's bigger by 6" or so with no mainland or dwarf blood. I agree, she's never going to be a true "giant" no matter how hard she's fed. Might get 9' but even that would be big considering she's been hovering around 7' for a while without too much additional length recently. Getting a bit heavier though which would explain her wanting more food and pushing more. She ate two days ago and has been pretty quiet but still gets very interested in any movement near the cage when I'm in the room. Her right lip swelling has gone down even since I posted this morning. I'll probably take your advice and keep her sedated with food and keep an eye on her to see how her face does.


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[Sauzo]

Yeah. Just weird her lip swells up after she eats.

She might calm down some with a bigger cage but Gina for example is only 2' and she's in a 4' cage and when she is hungry, she is all over that cage and spends probably 60% of the time windshield wiping the glass doors. Maybe the snakes have learned the glass doors is where food comes from and they pace it or camp it hoping the glass door gods grant them dinner haha.

Not sure if it's good advice or not but people have told me if your retic is pushing or destroying the cage and its a female, it's either hungry or the husbandry is off. If it's a male, he's either hungry, husbandry is off, or he wants some sweet luvin lol.

Anyways, good luck on the lip issue and in that first pic, it does look pretty bad although surf those retic forums and you will see WAY worse. i saw one from a guy with a white albino male where it looked like the snake had a big cottonball in its mouth. That snake did some serious pushing and the owner was a moron and didnt take care of it.

[jmcrook]

Would that first pic be vet worthy swelling in your opinion? Or in anyone else's opinion for that matter? I've been told by a few people with retic experience that the swelling should go down in time and just to keep an eye on her. I'm just a worrier


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[Gio]

Would that first pic be vet worthy swelling in your opinion? Or in anyone else's opinion for that matter? I've been told by a few people with retic experience that the swelling should go down in time and just to keep an eye on her. I'm just a worrier


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I think its commonplace for a lot of retics to have banged up faces. Maybe not good, but a common occurrence for a lot of them to exhibit some goofy mouths.

Hey, just FYI, I gave Wallace a bath tonight to get I'm to Pee and he was breathing hard the rest of the night. I don't think he particularly liked his bath experience. I saw him loading up toward me for a strike so I used a shampoo bottle to break his aggression, I got two nice, wide mouthed threat displays after that.

He was making heavy breathing sounds with a slight whistle after being wet. I think every snake I've put in the tub has made those same sounds.

I doubt your husbandry is off, but I would like to see how she behaves with a 76-77 degree night drop from 22:00 Hrs to maybe 08:30 the next morning.

Personally, I can't see how anything is off as you've had such a wonderful first year with her.

Also, after a bad strike, Ive had both the royal python and the boa here, have screwed up faces for a couple of days. The royal was the first snake here when we got it for our son. She had me concerned because her lip was folded in after a weird strike. It went away in 2 days.

I think the pushing coupled with possibly, a not ideal strike could account for the swelling.

Keep and eye on it, but I'll bet a good meal and a new cage will help.

[Sauzo]

Would that first pic be vet worthy swelling in your opinion? Or in anyone else's opinion for that matter? I've been told by a few people with retic experience that the swelling should go down in time and just to keep an eye on her. I'm just a worrier Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nah not vet worthy. Doesn't look great but I've seen worse. Just keep her fed and in a food coma to let it heal.

I would watch more for that swelling when she eats. That almost sounds like an infected tooth that when she eats food and it gets shifted, it gets inflamed or something.

In the meantime, I would find a good vet so you have one if you do need it.

I too am like you and a worrier. When Caesar got his scrapes, I was all over the retic boards asking and everyone said it's nothing and he would shed it. They did say though that I was underfeeding him as a medium rat for a 5' snake was not near enough. The one guy said, he can easily eat large rats or even jumbos. Said pushing was his way of wanting more food since he was too young to be looking for a girlfriend. A lot of other guys agreed with him and said, he knows his retics. He said, its not a boa, it's a retic be it SD or manlaind, it's still a retic and will eat like a retic. Not a large rat once a month boa.

Anyways, once I fed Caesar larges, he mellowed out and once he went up to jumbos, he quit pushing except maybe once or twice a day before dinner. And even those pushes are more just looking in the gap to see whats up.

[Sauzo]

I think its commonplace for a lot of retics to have banged up faces. Maybe not good, but a common occurrence for a lot of them to exhibit some goofy mouths.

Hey, just FYI, I gave Wallace a bath tonight to get I'm to Pee and he was breathing hard the rest of the night. I don't think he particularly liked his bath experience. I saw him loading up toward me for a strike so I used a shampoo bottle to break his aggression, I got two nice, wide mouthed threat displays after that.

He was making heavy breathing sounds with a slight whistle after being wet. I think every snake I've put in the tub has made those same sounds.

I doubt your husbandry is off, but I would like to see how she behaves with a 76-77 degree night drop from 22:00 Hrs to maybe 08:30 the next morning.

Personally, I can't see how anything is off as you've had such a wonderful first year with her.

Also, after a bad strike, Ive had both the royal python and the boa here, have screwed up faces for a couple of days. The royal was the first snake here when we got it for our son. She had me concerned because her lip was folded in after a weird strike. It went away in 2 days.

I think the pushing coupled with possibly, a not ideal strike could account for the swelling.

Keep and eye on it, but I'll bet a good meal and a new cage will help.

Haha, I haven't given Caesar a bath yet. I have sprayed him with a water bottle though and he seems to not mind it.

Caesar did those wide open mouth threats when he was a baby at his hook. I quit using that and since then he has been mellow.

He could drop the temp a little but honestly I think its food pushing. He's got a female which are food driven more than males from what I've been told. Worth a shot though but Caesar for example is kept about 80-82F on his cool side and 92F on the hot spot. I don't have changing ambient temps since I just use flexwatt so basically the whole cage ambient is 80-82F or whatever the cool side temp is.

And I agree, JM is probably fine on husbandry.

Guess I've been lucky in that none of my snakes have gotten a messed up face from food. Rosey has even freakin grabbed the feeding tongs a few times and wrapped them up with her rat and had the tongs in her mouth. I use the BBQ tongs for her. Then when she lets go and finally picks the rat up, I quicky slide the tongs out haha. As for Dottie, she doesn't eat enough to get anything screwed up lol. It's closing in on 4.5 months since shes eaten.

[jmcrook]

Nah not vet worthy. Doesn't look great but I've seen worse. Just keep her fed and in a food coma to let it heal.

I would watch more for that swelling when she eats. That almost sounds like an infected tooth that when she eats food and it gets shifted, it gets inflamed or something.

In the meantime, I would find a good vet so you have one if you do need it.

I too am like you and a worrier. When Caesar got his scrapes, I was all over the retic boards asking and everyone said it's nothing and he would shed it. They did say though that I was underfeeding him as a medium rat for a 5' snake was not near enough. The one guy said, he can easily eat large rats or even jumbos. Said pushing was his way of wanting more food since he was too young to be looking for a girlfriend. A lot of other guys agreed with him and said, he knows his retics. He said, its not a boa, it's a retic be it SD or manlaind, it's still a retic and will eat like a retic. Not a large rat once a month boa.

Anyways, once I fed Caesar larges, he mellowed out and once he went up to jumbos, he quit pushing except maybe once or twice a day before dinner. And even those pushes are more just looking in the gap to see whats up.

I do have a vet locally that friends have used and recommended that I'm ready to use at any time. The real issue is that I'm moving 8.5 hours away to Mississippi in 5 weeks for a new teaching job at Mississippi State University. From what I've been able to find, the nearest vet that deals more heavily with exotics is about 3 hours from the town I'm moving to, Starkville. If anyone from Mississippi comes across this thread and knows of a decent exotics vet near Starkville please let me know!


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[Sauzo]

Ugh that sucks. My vet is about an hour away.

[jmcrook]

Forgot to update here. Phyllis took a large rat on 6/19, went into shed cycle a few days later, and shed on 6/29 for a total of 10 days quiet time with zero pushing. After shed, her face looks soooo much better and gave her her first 400gram jumbo rat that same day. 3 days later still no pushing, a couple huge pisses first all liquid and second with some urates while I had her out for exercise. Still some girthy sausage butt to be worked out over the next few days lol. Thank you everyone for the replies and suggestions. I feel like seasonal changes had just prompted her to be ridiculously food driven coupled with her reaching a more mature size.
Huge food lump that was almost entirely gone after two days. Crazy fast metabolism


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[bcr229]

I would continue to get her out for exercise if that involves outside time in the yard. She may just "go" for you out there, much easier to deal with than cleaning the enclosure. Also I found with mine that giving them more exercise and outside time means that they're more likely to relax when in their homes. I think we forget that these are active snakes and they need more exercise time each day than something like a ball python or Dumerils boa.