First off I just want to make a say Rose does not have IBD. She has been under the care of a veterinarian that specializes in snakes for three months and has been given the all-clear.
That being said, poor Rose does have cognitive issues caused be her almost starving to death. She was my first snake, I got her from a big box store and got some very bad advice, and thanks to a very good veterinarian we were able to nurse her back to health.
You can see in the video below that she is extremely uncoordinated. She will often move parts of her body that she doesn't mean to. Frequently she will curl parts of her body into a tight spiral. It's not uncommon for me to see her with three or four tight spirals down her body.
She just had her first successful feed since I got her a few days ago, and I noticed that she had extreme difficulty getting into striking position. She missed with three strikes before I was able to get the rat close enough to her for her to grab it. Once she had it she didn't get a good grip on it and sadly was unable to until I assisted her, but she got it quickly on her second try. I was feeding her a live fuzzy rat.
You can also see in the video that at times she is quite capable of moving normally, and others not so much. If I do the upside-down test, sometimes she finds her way right-side-up quickly, and other times (as in the video) it takes her a little bit to get it.
She also cannot seem to "ball" appropriately, and will instead end up in several tight individual coils instead of one big ball. I never find her in a ball in her enclosure either.
When I first remove her from her enclosure to handle her she will squirm very quickly and is very reactive to movement which will cause more rapid wriggling until she has settled down, which only takes a minute or two. For reference I had been handling her about 3-4 minutes when I started shooting the video.
Can anyone help me understand what exactly is going on with her, and tell me if there is anything I can do to help her? Any kind of snake rehab (as stupid as that sounds)? My vet just chalked it up under "permanent cognitive issues" and didn't get very specific.
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