yawning bp

[enyonaudrey]

hi folks, so i’ve had my ball python almost a year now and around 5 months ago, he started yawning quite often. i took him to the vet immediately after looking it up and seeing that it might mean he has an RI obviously freaking out. the vet said he seemed totally fine but that yawning is a sign of an impending RI and to keep his heat up and humidity at around 50-60%. and i’ve done that, but now multiple months later he’s still yawning very frequently, but still with no mucus/wheezing or any other signs of RI at all. please if someone knows another reason for why he might be doing this let me know, i’m worried about my baby

[Bogertophis]

Did your vet look into his mouth to see if there's anything (like substrate) stuck in his teeth or jaw? What kind of substrate do you use for him? Or if he has some other sort of issue with his jaw, like an infection? Has he ever struck the glass/plexi (ie. hit his head) or been dropped? Do you see any lumps? (if so, it's likely an abscess from an injury- & snakes form mostly solid pus that needs surgical help for drainage. Snakes may often yawn to realign their jaws/rows of teeth, especially after they eat.

A snake also may have one or more damaged teeth (from a hard strike) that are stuck at odd angles & need to come out. If they're out of alignment, they'll continue to irritate their mouth (they're very sharp!) so that could be another reason a snake would keep yawning- they need our hands to help them, as the only thing they could do is keep trying to re-align their teeth by yawning. In the wild, a subsequent meal might do the trick of loosening & removing the offending teeth- they'd be swallowed with their meal, fyi. Just another possibility- if you're not up to looking inside his mouth, have your vet do it. Their teeth are semi-translucent & hard to see.

Your vet mentioned that yawning might indicate the start of an RI- that's if the yawning is actually the snake needing to mouth-breathe- they cannot cough & can choke to death from secretions if they have an RI (respiratory infection), but if he's been yawning for 5 months, that's MORE than enough time that you'd be seeing more symptoms IF this was an RI- you'd see bubbling around his mouth, hear wheezing or whistling or crackling sounds, & see a loss of appetite. So off-hand I'd say it's not an RI.

Another reason I've seen snakes yawn is just before they shed, to help loosen the skin around their mouth; that's where they start to peel off their old skin, though they shouldn't continue doing that- unless maybe there's some stuck skin on their jaw- even just on the lower jaw around the mouth- have you checked? It can be VERY hard to see. What's the humidity level he's kept at? (Raising it to about 70% when he's shedding is helpful & a good idea.)

Overall- from what you said & without seeing your snake, I'd say the MOST likely issue is either irritation from a loose tooth, or some old skin stuck on his chin- so keep up his humidity & keep looking. BTW, I've had to help remove bits of nearly-invisible stuck shed from a snake's chin more than once! Being a "detective" is part of snake-ownership.

[Kryptic]

How often is often to see your snake yawn? I'd say I see mine do it about once a week other than his post-meal scream at the sky to reset his jaw.

The first time I saw it, I looked into it and worried about an RI, but I also kept checking and have never seen mucus or thick saliva.