Confusing Symptoms

[NightFlyer333]

Hi:

I have two ball pythons and just recently, my youngest one (who has been with us almost two years now) has been displaying some odd symptoms. He was eating up to 3 hoppers at a time, so we decided to give him an adult mouse a few days ago. He ate it in a record time, and showed no signs of skin stretching. He has been moving around his cage quite a bit since eating, and showing no signs of having problems.
Yesterday he had some saliva problems that started to get my attention, but after upping the warmth a bit, I checked on him again, and he seemed fine.
Today, I came home from work, and the entire cage was coated in what I first thought to be canola oil. The only problem is, nobody would have put canola oil in the tank. It is very weird, adn the only thing that my room mate and I can come up with, is maybe he regurgitated some stomach acid.

Has anybody ever come across this? It is really baffling me.

Thanks
NightFlyer.

[pavlovk1025]

Canola oil like it was viscous and oily or was it just the color of canola oil?

[Kaorte]

Sounds like he might have been wiping his saliva/snot all over the cage. Could be an RI (snake cold) I would go see the vet.

[NightFlyer333]

It was oily and even smelled like canola oil.
I checked on him this morning, and he seems to be doing fine. I checked for any other signs of RI and I can't find any. I just wasn't sure if anyone had ever heard of this?

[derrabe]

Here is my question your feeding a 2 year old snake hoppers? By 2 years old he should be close to small rat size.

[Freakie_frog]

Sounds like the start of an RI..the excess salavia one day and then finding it all over the tank the next..sure sounds like a good Ole RI to me. Get it to the vet run the treatment it should clear up.

[Muze]

Sounds like a possible RI. I would take him to the vet.

[NightFlyer333]

Thank you all for the help.

As for the two year old on hoppers, he is still pretty small, but my vet said not to worry about it. He has a healthy appetite and lots of room in his cage. We just moved him up to adult mice.

Both of my snakes were rescues and were stunted, I am working with a herpatologist (she just happens to be away on business at the moment) and with my vet.

[Kaorte]

It is kind of hard to believe that the snake was that stunted. Did they just neglect to feed it for 2 years? A hatchling can eat hopper mice and within a month can move to small adult mice. :/ Glad you are working with rescues though! I would love to do so myself but I don't have the time to dedicate to it (school :/)

[Mike Cavanaugh]

must see pictures. there is no way a 2 year old BP should be eating hoppers, or even large mice in my opinion.