Help!

[samwise]

Yeah I am going to try to feed him tonight. His behavior is fine as well, so I guess that's a good sign. It's just scary to see your ball's cute round head suddenly go to that size. I am still confused on why it would have lost the muscle mass so quick seeing as last year he didn't eat for twice as long and still maintained the muscles.

As for his tank:

30 gal tank (a little small for him, I am saving up for a bigger one); I use aspen for a substrate and clean any area he uses the bathroom in pronto (the ENTIRE area...I also clean out the entire thing every few weeks); heat lamp set on a timer (I change the timer to what photoperiod is outside); heater on side of cage near warm hide box; water bowl in the middle; measure heat using thermometer and measure humidity using a hygrometer.

I didn't offer him food every week after he stopped mainly because I mentioned it to the herpetologist I work for and he told me Banana should be fine and to offer him some food once Spring came around.

[Kaorte]

You should always offer food at least every two weeks during a fasting period.
So yeah, start offering him food asap.
What kind of thermometers are you using?

[anatess]

Looking at the pic, I think Banana will be just fine. Just a few changes that I can recommend (I had a bp that fasted for 6 weeks, just started eating last month).

1.) 30L is big enough for your snake. I'm guessing that's what you have - not the 30 gallon one for fish which are usually taller with a smaller floor area than a 30L for reptiles. No need to up the size.
2.) Replace the temp/humidity gauges with a digital one with probe like the Acu-Rite Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer/Hygrometer/Clock with probe. You can get this from Wal-mart for 12 bucks. Put the probe under the warm-side hide. Since you got your heater on the side of the tank, you might not be capturing the actual temperature where Banana is usually resting in. Put the Acu-Rite unit on the middle of the back wall, as close to the floor as you can. Now, your inside temps reading should be around 80-85 and your outside temps reading should be around 90-95. And the humidity should be around 50%.
3.) Offer food every week. If she eats, cool! If she doesn't, then don't worry much about it, just offer it again the next week. Are you feeding f/t? You can refreeze the food once but after that, you'll have to throw it away.

That's all I got.

[samwise]

I am using a digital thermometer. I forget the name of it but I know it has a tree frog on the package.

I will try that probe... sometimes I will bring the thermometer gun from our snake lab to make sure everything is right but the probe sounds nice..

Just for a reference, this is what his head looked like pre-shrinking:



Typical model pose

[samwise]

* Update *

According to vet: lost muscle mass.. just feed and it will go away.

So, I officially feel better it's not anything too serious. Thanks for all the help

[zhang317]

* Update *

According to vet: lost muscle mass.. just feed and it will go away.

So, I officially feel better it's not anything too serious. Thanks for all the help

That's good, I'm glad to hear that. Just offer Banana food once a week to regain the loss muscle mass, and he'll be just fine!

[anatess]

Great news!

So, yeah, keep us posted on Banana's progress. We'd like to know how she's doing. Updates with pictures after she's had a rat or two would be cool too. She's a very pretty snake!

And here's some dancing bananas for ya...