Hey folks,
We're 3 weeks into our first ball python and, of course, here I am asking about a regurgitation. If my understanding is right, we'd more accurately call it a vomit. This is our snake's second feeding since coming to us from the reptile store. The snake is young, 60g, and per the store was feeding on fuzzies at the store, although what they were actually feeding didn't look like fuzzies to me...they had full coats of white fur and were running all over the place, more like juveniles or small adults, and that seems perhaps a bit large to me based on circumference and a 10-15% prey-to-snake weight ratio. Normal bowel movement after the 1st feeding.

We fed our snake, didn't handle at all for 24 hours, handled briefly for a cage cleaning at ~36 hours, all seemed normal the rest of the day through bedtime (~48 hours) and then the next morning (~54 hours post feeding) came down to find ONLY some loose fur, hind legs, and a tail in the water basin of his terrarium.

His terrarium is glass 30"x12"x15", cardboard walls on 3 sides to limit his exposure, a wood hide on the warm side, a black plastic one on the cool side, 75w overhead IR light on the warm side as well as an UTH hooked up to a thermostat. Ground temperature on the warm side is consistently 80-85, with basking temperatures 90-95 by IR gun, air temperature on that side 75-80 degrees. Cool side with ground temperatures ~75 and air temperature about 71 per the room's ambient. Humidity is low right now, ~30-45% and I'm in the process of covering the lid which is mesh to better retain humidity.

The day of his feeding, so 48 hours pre-vomit, I experimented with switching his IR light to a timer so that he was only getting UTH heat at night and I noticed that the ground temperature on the cool side was ~70 degrees. During those two nights, he seemed to be preferring his cool hide, so was likely spending more time in 70s although he did come out and bask intermittently on the warm side.

His behavior up until regurgitation seemed very normal. Moved between warm and cool sides, peaked out of his hides, seemed relaxed. Since the regurgitation he had a rough 24 hours where he spent the majority of the time on his warm side, curled up on top of his wood hide and on top of a rock basking and curled up pretty tightly. Today he seems a bit more relaxed again, moving back and forth between hides intermittently, peaking his head out every so often again.

Things I've changed in the aftermath...I have a larger heat mat coming, the existing one is only 6x8 which I think is too small by the rule-of-1/3 for a 30x12 terrarium, the new one is 12x8 which is closer to the right side and should give more belly heat on the warm side. I am keeping the IR light on 24/7 so that night temperatures aren't too cold. Of course I'm not handling him at all right now. I'm giving him a food holiday through Nov 11th which will be 2 weeks from his last feeding. I'm hesitant to go longer, because I'm admittedly concerned about giving such a young snake a long interval without any food, as I mentioned, he's only 60g at this time. Next feed will be a true fuzzy, I'll aim for 4-7g.

My suspicion was that the heat lamp off at night was a bad decision on my part. The ambient in his room is 71 degrees and with the. 6x8 UTH, I think at night his warm side wasn't warm enough and his cool side in the low 70s, or possibly 60s inside his hide, was just too cold and his digestion slowed down. With the slowed digestion, with mouse still in there at 48 hours, his system vomited the remnants, hence only recovering just the hind feet and a tail with some hair. I'm hoping that bringing the heat up and not getting cool over night as well as improving the size of the UTH for better belly heat will improve things.

Thoughts, suggestions, or things you feel I'm missing or completely off base on?