Woma Python is corkscrewing

[GyGbeetle]

I had a question for anyone that has experience either with womas or any Python in general. Starting Christmas Eve day, my woma Charlotte started corkscrewing. Now I know what everyone is going to jump to; IBD. However, the symptoms don't match. Here's a brief history of Charlotte: we bought her at a trade show a little over a month ago from a vendor who we've bought 5 other boas from over the course of 6 months. Charlotte was there on every visit, and I spent time with her on a couple of these visits. So I'm confident she was healthy when I brought her home.

so the incident: about 2 weeks ago we bought a temp/humidity gauge from the store, that has a velcro adhesive component on the back. Well, day 2 of having said product, Charlotte managed to wrap her whole body over it, and remove the adhesive from the side of her tank (60 gallon glass tank). This was about 3 weeks post purchase. And then she slithered over it. The adhesive stuck to her chin. It stuck pretty good. So good in fact that we brought her back to the store to have them help get it off. With a q-tip and olive oil and some pulling, we all finally got it off. As a precaution, we removed substrate from her tank and didn't feed her for 2 weeks. Replaced forest floor with a towel. She seemed happy. Very energetic. Crazy Charlotte!

second incident: I fed her the usual size rat (small) the day before xmas eve and put the saved substrate back into tank. She ate. She was happy. Crazy but full Charlotte. The next day, we noticed corkscrewing on the head portion of her. No other symptoms. Just the head. She resolves out of it very quickly, but she can't pull herself all the way to the top of her tank since this started. Her head just droops to the side. So we removed (and tossed) her substrate thinking it absorbed some unknown poison. We've quarantined her, and we have been giving her fresh water daily. She's getting better, but not sure what happened and how to get her head motion restored.

any help or ideas?

[Eric Alan]

Edit: Read too fast. Thought it was a Woma morph ball python not a Woma python. My bad.

[bcr229]

I would not immediately jump to IBD in this case, I would figure on a bad feeder, a temperature spike, or exposure to chemicals.

Also if you've only had her 30 days there should have been no need to return her to QT, she should still have been isolated from your other snakes. I would have re-started it at the date you brought her to the pet store to remove the stuck temp/humidity gauge.

[GyGbeetle]

Eric: the comment still applies. Ball Pythons are still Pythons. Maybe some of this might just be Woma related, but I think most of it is all Python (or even all boid) related. Do you have any thoughts about what this might be?

[Eric Alan]

Eric: the comment still applies. Ball Pythons are still Pythons. Maybe some of this might just be Woma related, but I think most of it is all Python (or even all boid) related. Do you have any thoughts about what this might be?

The comment I had was related specifically to the Woma morph and its associated issues, so it didn't apply at all actually.

The above reply is most appropriate. It's tough to diagnose much over the internet. Observation over time in a QT area and possibly a vet visit if symptoms don't imorove/change are the best bet.

[GyGbeetle]

Unfortunately, the QT decision is not mine but my husband's. We've had this argument since we started creating our snake collection. I'm for QT, he feels that he "trusts" the source/breeder enough not to worry about it. We've been told by a vet that we had seen for a previous issue with another snake that QT should be 6 months to a year.

If it is a chemical exposure, how do I figure out what she was exposed to, and ensure that she doesn't have any future exposures? And how long will the corkscrewing last? We're going on day 5, and she continues to improve, but she still can't do those elegant dances to the top of her tank like she originally was doing. And I know it's frustrating her; it's her favorite thing to do.

For the feeder, we had a bag of the same sized feeders. We used other feeders from the same bag to feed our 2 retics, and our burmese, with no incident. After I fed her. So I'm leaning less towards a bad feeder as the source of potential toxin.

Is it at all possible that during her incident, and removal of the tape, that something got bruised in her neck, and by feeding her a small rat instead of a pup, that I exacerbated the bruising? It's literally only in the area of the damage that she corkscrews. And it only happens when she's either backing up to get away (from kisses from me), or if she's nearing the top of the tank and can't hold her head up?

[GyGbeetle]

Eric, I read your replies and responded out of sequence. Sorry! I did setup a vet appointment with a highly sought after vet in the area. He's only in clinic about twice a month, so his next visit is when I scheduled for Charlotte, which is January 7. I work from home, so I get to check up on her all the time, and yesterday had her out for a good portion of the day. she did really well, I mean really well, while I had her out. I didn't want to put her away. I'm only noticing the head issue when she tries to lift herself all the way up, or when she's trying to back her head up, which is a vast improvement from when we first noticed this. So I'm thinking January 7 vet apt wait may not be terrible. Of course if she escalates, I have a back-up vet to take her to

[bcr229]

Is it at all possible that during her incident, and removal of the tape, that something got bruised in her neck, and by feeding her a small rat instead of a pup, that I exacerbated the bruising? It's literally only in the area of the damage that she corkscrews. And it only happens when she's either backing up to get away (from kisses from me), or if she's nearing the top of the tank and can't hold her head up?

Anything is possible. The vet will probably want to take an x-ray to see if there's any damage to her bones from when the temp/humidity gauge was pulled off of her - though if you had to pull that hard, I would have thought her scales would have let go first. Otherwise there may only be soft tissue damage or bruising from the incident which is causing her some pain, and that is slowly resolving itself.

[GyGbeetle]

Some scales did come off her. She's even better today than yesterday so I'm hopeful. She didn't have any issues after the incident, only after I fed her, and it didn't start the day after. Do you think it might just be bruising?