where are the poops???

[Southpaw91]

So I have had my baby BP for about a month now, she is somewhere around 3-4 months old, i think. I check her enclosure daily for waste and she is eating regularly, appropriate sized prey every 5-6 days. The thing is, in the month I have had her, I have only found 2 urates and no poops. Her body feels the normal level of squishy, so I don't think she is impacted. Is this normal? It's possible there have been poops that i didn't recognize because her substrate is brown, but wouldn't I be able to smell it? It just smells like eco earth in her tub. This is my first snake and I'm just worried.

[Craiga 01453]

Not to doubt you, but what size prey are you feeding and how often? Many new keepers are misled and underfeed their snakes.

[Southpaw91]

I have her on ft adult mice. Roughly the same size as the largest part of her body. Every 5 days usually.

[Craiga 01453]

Ok. The reason I ask is that many new keepers unknowingly underfeed their snakes. And will often ask "where is the poop?". And it turns out there's no poop because the snake is using 100% of the prey item to sustain growth. This doesn't seem the case in your situation.

Soooo, my next guess would be she may be coming up on a shed. They will often times "hold it" if a shed is coming. They will hang onto all the resources in their body to aid with the shed. Typically there is a poop along with the shed when this happens.

[Luvyna]

Sounds pretty normal to me, since she's passing urates it doesn't sound like she's impacted. As long as you don't see a "sausage butt" or signs of bloating she's probably fine. My BP went from pooping twice a month, to once a month, to every 1-2 months as he grew. It's good that you're paying attention to this so you can figure out her normal rhythm soon. Every snake is different and some go more frequently than others.

[Southpaw91]

Understandable. a lot of people don't do a lot of their own research before getting a snake. I personally combed the internet for about a year, learning everything i could before jumping in. She may have been holding it for her shed. She just shed last night. there was a urate with her shed skin, and i have read that sometimes their poops can be encased in the urate. It was large for a urate so that might be what happened. Like i said, she seems to be acting perfectly normal and there is no firmness in her lower body, so i'm not like panicking or anything, but it just seemed weird to me. I'd like to move her up to weaned rats soon, but she's not quite big enough yet. I guess I'll just keep an eye out. I'm changing her substrate in the next few days as well so I'll see if i can find any. Thanks for the advice!

[Craiga 01453]

Understandable. a lot of people don't do a lot of their own research before getting a snake. I personally combed the internet for about a year, learning everything i could before jumping in. She may have been holding it for her shed. She just shed last night. there was a urate with her shed skin, and i have read that sometimes their poops can be encased in the urate. It was large for a urate so that might be what happened. Like i said, she seems to be acting perfectly normal and there is no firmness in her lower body, so i'm not like panicking or anything, but it just seemed weird to me. I'd like to move her up to weaned rats soon, but she's not quite big enough yet. I guess I'll just keep an eye out. I'm changing her substrate in the next few days as well so I'll see if i can find any. Thanks for the advice!

Awesome to hear!!! Unfortunately you're right, lots of people don't do enough research. I'm glad to see you were prepared.
Glad to have you on board. Please don't be shy, we're happy to help!

[Southpaw91]

OH MY GOSH y'all!!! This made me laugh so hard I had to share. So Luna, over the last month or so hasn't been pooping much, but she has been passing urates regularly. I did give her a warm soak for about 30 min a couple weeks ago to see if she would poop in the tub but nothing. She hasn't seemed impacted or anything and like I said, has been passing urates, so I've just been keeping an eye on her body condition; no sausage butt, however she has seemed a bit more "locked and loaded" the last few days. So anyway, I go to check her enclosure this morning like I do every day, lift up the hides to check temps and check for waste, and... Y'ALL. Under her cool hide is a urate, a clump of mouse fur, and a HUGE turd that almost looked big enough to be my cat's!!! I looked her over quickly and her cloaca looks fine. She was snoozing away in her warm hide. She must feel so much better. Frankly, so do I now that she produced a substantial poo. Just wanted to post the update on this thread