Hello all.
I'm concerned about my adult male ball python. He's been having full body spasms for a few days now and I can't begin to fathom why. I took him to the vet and my vet couldn't think of anything either. She said it could be IBD but it wasn't likely because the ONLY sign he's showing is the awkward full body spasms. It's not the normal, 'don't touch me' twitch that they sometimes give off either. The only thing she could think of is maybe he's stressed? I'm babysitting a few snakes (mostly ball pythons, but also a few colubrids) for a friend and she said even though he can't see them that he could smell them or something and that could be stressing him out. I've noticed though that it usually happens when I pick him up (i.e. to take him out of his tub for cleaning or bring him closer to me because he's trying to escape off the back of my chair and I have cats) or put him down back in his enclosure. He's just a normal morph, not a spider or anything fancy.
I moved him into a 40 gallon breeder today in hopes that that will help because his old tub was too small (though he'd been in that for nearly 5 months with no problem). His heat is fine, 90-95 on the warm end, and he's never had any issues shedding. He eats fantastic once a week--small rats for right now until I use up the last of them and move him to mediums. He was a rescue that a friend gave me and was underweight when I got him but he's 1400 grams ish now. He's only done this once before, about 3 months ago, when I used to work at a pet store and brought him up there for a 'Meet the Critter' day. I haven't brought him up there since and don't mess with him a whole lot other than to clean his enclosure and sometimes have him on me when I'm watching a movie at home. He doesn't spasm every time I go to pick him up or put him down either. I picked him up once at the vet and he was totally fine (albeit after spasming when I tried to take him out of his pillow case at first and then again when he was out and I went to pick him up the first time).
The vet touched all along his spine to see if it was a pain reaction and he did react a bit (just a 'someone's touching me' muscle tense) when she got to a certain point, but then she had me do the same and not even a twitch. I just... I don't understand and I'm worried about him because I KNOW it's not normal behavior.
Does anyone have an knowledge of this or know why it's started all of a sudden? Dx