Althea Update + Cool drinking story!

[SuddenEclipse]

Hey doods

Okay, well as some of you my know I've been having a hard time getting Althea straight after a really bad shed. Took her to the store I got her from and the guy said Whoa she seems really dehyrated and thin. So he soaked her, squeezed some poop out (she was really constipated too!!) and then force fed her a small fuzzy to jump start her metabolism. Don't panic, not a force feed down her throat, just hooked it to her teeth so she would eat. She did not regurgitate it and since she appeared to have lost weight I was glad he did it. He thought my tank was too hot for her, so I've re-evaluated some things, rearraged her house, and lowerd the UTH.

Her warm spot where her UTH and her favorite hide is at 90 degrees. The cool parts of her enclosure are right at 78., so she can pretty much pick her temps. (There are 2 hides, but she definitley prefers the one where the UTH is.) Humidity is at 60. Water bowl is plenty big enough for her to fit into (although I realize you guys would say she drinks when I don't see her, I think she's lazy and waits for me to put her near it to drink.) LOL And I have yet to see her soak herself.

So, with all of this being said, her overall look seems to be improving. The tongue is coming back out and she's not so stiff in her back end anymore. She still has some skin hanging around after her not so great shed, but I feel like she looks better and is getting back to normal. YAY! I will buy her a live fuzzy if I can on Wednesday and see if she wants that and if she can eat that then I will try to move her back up to her larger foods the following week. I'm still waiting for a brown poop to come out, but she has been peeing white stuff out quite often. (It's not the pee rocks, and it's not just liquid. It's kind of like the white part of an egg yoke. She's good at that.)

Anyway, here is her cool drinking story (at least I was all happy about it.) This morning I checked in on her and picked her up and put her near her water, but instead of putting her down I just held her, she totally could have just left my hand if she wanted, but instead she decided to let me keep holding her, then she stretched her neck out and drank from her water as I was holding her! I don't know if this is common or not, but it made me feel all special.

Her tail end still has a long wrinkle in it, but part of that may be because she is still holding on to some old skin back there, but the rest of her looks healthy and normal. She is improving every day. I'm trying to leave her alone for a good week and don't want to start really handling her again until she's eating on her own again (this morning was like a 2 minute, "Hey good morning, how you doing" session.)

Soaking her for about 20 minutes every other day seems to help her pee rocks/white stuff (whatever that is) and help her skin and she lets a little more skin off each day. I'm so happy she seems to be feeling better. The real test will be on Wednesday if she will eat on her own. And that's the update!

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

Just keep her temps good and you should be ok. Once she goes into blue again, meaning the eyes go cloudy, stop soaking. When she's getting ready to shed, soaking will actually cause a bad shed by washing away the layer of oil between the old skin and the new skin which is needed to get the old skin off.. Instead, just begin misting the enclosure for that week to raise humidity up to 70 until she sheds.

As for drinking.. BPs generally don't drink until right after they have eaten. If their humidity is high enough and they are not dehydrated, they won't drink except once or twice a week. They don't need to. Just like they don't need to soak if conditions are correct.

White solid pee is urates. There is liquid urine, yellow urates, white urates, and poo of all different textures. Even some fur. It's all normal as long as it isn't super watery poo or has worms, blood, or is something very obviously wrong with it.

So don't "spoil" her quite so much because you may be over doing it in some areas. Remember, its a wild animal. She doesnt really need help. Just the proper environment to thrive and be content. To be healthy and act the way a BP should.

Just keep the temps correct and humidity between 60% and 65% with a bump to 70% or so during the week of shed and she will be fine. I'd try to not handle her until she starts eating every week on her own for you or you could keep having problems.

People throw around the words "force feed" and "assist feed" like it's normal, but it really shouldn't be taken that lightly. BPs are not beginner snakes, as you found out the hard way.

[Jessica Loesch]

I would not call that force feeding, but assist feeding.

Could not have said anything better than Foschi.