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  1. #1
    Registered User ontariosnakelover's Avatar
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    How does a ball python act when gravid compared to when constipated? Please advise me

    Long story short is I want to know the noticeable differences between a ball pythons behavior when pregnant compared to having a blockage. Couple months ago I stopped breeding my Yellowbelly girl to her YB boyfriend. Over the course of a couple months I had seen them lock personally 4 times, not sure if more while I'm gone at work A little bit around that time , different things were happening . My girl stopped eating completely after months and month of successful FT small rat weekly feedings. She's had a history of not taking many bowel movements but rather have a big one now and then. I havnt seen her bowel movement for over 3 months at least now. So no appetite and no bowel movements. She's been lethargic and won't leave her hide. It seems everything she does is both possible things that I've been told can happen with both pregnancy a d constipation. I just checked on her one day and I noticed the large swollen part of her body 2 thirds down which again, could be a sign of both things . Sent pictures to my breeder I go through, and he's being optimistic and saying she may be ovulating and check if she sheds in the next 3ish weeks or so. If I palpate her I cant tell if I'm feeling hard urate or follicles. Don't wanna press too hard. I've given her a 30 minute bath and a soft massage and nothing changed afterwards . Even though I say she's lethargic , when I grab her and pick her up, her tongues flicking good and she has her normal physical responses such as quickly hiding her head if I move too fast bear her face and such. I lay her on the bed and she likes to move around but she doesn't wanna move her lower half very much. Had to stop her from falling off the edge a couple times.
    So again, I'd like people's advice and experiences with gravid behavior and blockage behaviors. I have to travel a couple hours to the nearest snake seeing vet unfortunately so I won't unless I feel the need is dire. I'm hoping she's just gravid and I'm being overly zealous about it. Her enclosure is fine and everything. Hot side is around 88 where I am right now, humidity I admit is a bit low but I try to compensate it as much as I can. And she's lived normally on coconut husk fine substrate for a couple years now. Please give me what you got 🙏

  2. #2
    BPnet Veteran nikkubus's Avatar
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    More than likely she is just gravid and what you saw was her ovulation. All the signs and timing line up for her to be gravid. Feeling eggs is a lot harder than feeling developing follicles so I wouldn't rely on that at this stage. They would be about golf ball size and softer than a few weeks ago.

    How long ago was this swell, and has it gone down? This is the main thing I would base it on. Ovulation looks like they swallowed a small toy football or really large meal, but in that 2/3's down area. After ~24 hrs will drastically decrease over the next 24 hrs. That area will still appear to be swollen for the remainder of the time till she lays, but you would expect it to go down to how it was just before ovulation size and slowly build up again, and as it swells again it's going to be more spread out rather than one big lump.

    I would avoid any kind of soaking unless you have good reason to suspect it's constipation over being gravid. Hopefully it didn't cause problems already and the water was in the right temp range. If you end up with a lot of slugs, this would be the likely culprit. I certainly don't mean to cause you more worry, what's done is done, and I certainly hope you get all nice healthy fertile eggs.

    I would also cease handling her at this point unless absolutely necessary, and generally bug her as little as possible to keep her stress level low. When you do handle her, give her a lot more support underneath than usual and be gentle.
    7.22 BP 1.4 corn 1.1 SD retic 0.1 hognose

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    Re: How does a ball python act when gravid compared to when constipated? Please advis

    ^ exactly what this gentleman said. My female laid two months ago and before that while she was gravid she stayed in the same spot barely moved. If she just ovulated in a few weeks she should shed and u believe she will use the bathroom one last time.

    Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

  5. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Santiago6621 For This Useful Post:

    nikkubus (07-02-2021),ontariosnakelover (07-02-2021)

  6. #4
    Registered User ontariosnakelover's Avatar
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    Re: How does a ball python act when gravid compared to when constipated? Please advis

    Quote Originally Posted by nikkubus View Post
    More than likely she is just gravid and what you saw was her ovulation. All the signs and timing line up for her to be gravid. Feeling eggs is a lot harder than feeling developing follicles so I wouldn't rely on that at this stage. They would be about golf ball size and softer than a few weeks ago.

    How long ago was this swell, and has it gone down? This is the main thing I would base it on. Ovulation looks like they swallowed a small toy football or really large meal, but in that 2/3's down area. After ~24 hrs will drastically decrease over the next 24 hrs. That area will still appear to be swollen for the remainder of the time till she lays, but you would expect it to go down to how it was just before ovulation size and slowly build up again, and as it swells again it's going to be more spread out rather than one big lump.

    I would avoid any kind of soaking unless you have good reason to suspect it's constipation over being gravid. Hopefully it didn't cause problems already and the water was in the right temp range. If you end up with a lot of slugs, this would be the likely culprit. I certainly don't mean to cause you more worry, what's done is done, and I certainly hope you get all nice healthy fertile eggs.

    I would also cease handling her at this point unless absolutely necessary, and generally bug her as little as possible to keep her stress level low. When you do handle her, give her a lot more support underneath than usual and be gentle.

    Thank you for the quick response. I noticed the swollen size about 2 weeks ago but I didn't take het out of her hide for about 2 weeks before that as well, so it's possible I missed the peak swelling and now it's the relative normal swelling. I only say that because she is staying swollen and hasn't changed at all. She just continues to hide. And even though she refuses to eat, when she smells the food I offer she pops her head out to look and flick which I would consider a decent sign of health. As I said, it's been 2 weeks roughly since first noticing the swelling, so I'm trying to listen to others advice on a time limit I should give myself just in case. The goal was to have a successful breeding but ill gladly take a clutch of slugs if it means her health. Raised her from a hatchling and I'm just really anxious since all the signs are hard to differentiate. I try not to bug her too much at all, but I lift her hide up every couple of days to see any change in her eyes or coloring to see if she goes into shed. Just one little sign so I can relax is all I want

  7. #5
    Registered User ontariosnakelover's Avatar
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  8. #6
    BPnet Veteran nikkubus's Avatar
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    Pic isn't showing for some reason "404 - image not found".

    You shouldn't have much longer to wait for shed if it's been 2 weeks since you noticed. Fingers crossed she goes into blue soon so you can relax and know you have eggs on the way.
    7.22 BP 1.4 corn 1.1 SD retic 0.1 hognose

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