Not sure if I should be worried or not about some possible regurgitation?

[Banaunners]

I have a almost 2 year old ball, he's been with me for over a year. I fed him a very large mouse on Sunday evening. Today, Tuesday evening, I go into my room and am knocked out by the awful smell. So I clean out his cage and he has a really large... well, I'm not sure if it's poo or regurgitation. There was a lot of fur, a tail, looked only partially digested... but beside it were uriates, almost like it was partially digested and then came back up.

I'm leaning towards a regurg which makes me worried. His environment is about the same as it has been for the past 6 months or so... it did get alittle cold in the house a few days ago when a freeze came through but it was before I fed him.

So I have no idea if I need to run to a vet or if I should just wait and see what he does with his next meal.

[SDA]

People are going to ask you a ton of questions about your snake's weight and the conditions you keep it in like heat and humidity, how the heat is regulated, pictures of the enclosure, etc but the important thing to know is after a regurgitation you need to allow the digestive system of your snake to recover. This is advised by avoiding feeding for a 2 week period then offering a size smaller than you normally do to allow for them to get back to normal.

It might also be good to describe where you get your rodents from and the process you do to thaw it.

Regurgitation can be stress related, heat related, or disease related.It can even rarely be due to poorly prepared or stored rodents if f/t. If your husbandry is on point (you mentioned a sharp temp drop) and if there is not a repeated issue when re-offering food again then you can avoid a vet trip.

If you want some insight on the regurgitation (strong odor after eating and the description you gave sounds like a regurgitation), you might want to describe how you keep your snake and visually show so people can give insight into what went wrong but inadequate heat to digest could be a culprit.


You should skip a meal routine and then offer a smaller meal. If your snake regurgitates again you then need a vet visit.

[Craiga 01453]

Based on your description, I am thinking regurgitation. The smell of a regurge is like none other, and the intact fur and tail makes me think this is the case.

SDA is spot on with the possible causes as well as what to do moving forward. I completely agree and would also advise waiting two weeks before feeding and also would suggest going down a prey size. Regurgitation can beat up the snake's insides and you need to allow time for healing.

As for the cause, without knowing more it is hard to say. But if it were my animal I would try to identify and remedy the situation prior to feeding again.

You did mention a temp drop, which brings to question: are your heat sources regulated by a thermostat??

[Banaunners]

They are regulated by a thermostat on the warm side and that always stays around 90, but his cool side dropped to about 71 for a few hours until I caught on and fixed it with a higher watt bulb, since then it's stayed around 75, maybe I should go higher... I moved 6 months ago and it's my first time being in a place that gets this cold with my reptile.

As for his food, I get it from a reptile expo that goes on once a month. I would hope that's not the problem.

[dylan815]

sounds like a regurge. Check husbandry and then wait two weeks to try and feed. Good luck!