New BP and breathing question

[aibhaeog]

Hi, all.
After a lot of time setting up the enclosure and reading as much as I could, I finally got my BP.
I picked her up from the St. Louis Reptile Show last Sunday.
She looks healthy, although I'm pretty sure she's underweight.
I gave her plenty of time to acclimate to her new home.
Unfortunately, the kids want to see her and pet her and want me to figure out a name.
High side is running 92-94, low side is running 81-83, and the humidity is holding at 60%.

I fed her one adult mouse yesterday which she took gracioiusly. It did take her 3 tries to get a good coil for the suffocation to set in.
She spent the night in her cool hide and this morning, she came out to get a drink.
She settled down in the back warm corner (no hide) and has stayed there since 10:00am.

Enough rambling, on to my question.
I've noticed that it "looks like" she's breathing very heavily. When she exhales, her body noticably deflates.
I haven't counted her resperiations per minute yet. Does anyone know how often they breathe per min.?
Will she "deflate" excessively since she's underweight?
I don't have a scale, but she is very triangular shaped, not the nice round body that I've seen on other BPs.

[frankykeno]

Well congrats on the new lil b.p. and I know what it's like to keep kids off a new snake in the house (we have 4 kids ourselves) but it's best for the snake. We just explained to ours that the snake was scared spitless of all of us and it wouldn't help the poor thing if we bugged it at first.


Sounds like the baby might be underweight (I'm no expert tho as we are still relatively new to balls ourselves) since I don't believe a well fed baby would appear distinctly triangular in shape. If she's taking an adult mouse once per week tho that should get some weight on her I would think. Just remember to leave her for a good 2 days after she eats before handling.

Hopefully someone with a lot more experience can comment on the respiration questions you have.

Welcome to the forum!


~~Joanna~~

[aibhaeog]

Thanks. I won't let anyone go into the den but me, since she eaten.
My mom, "dropped by" about 1/2 hr. ago and she wanted to see the new addition.
That's really cool, expecially since she has a terrible phobia of snakes and worms.
I'm going to keep a good eye on her for the next couple weeks to make sure she's doing ok.

I'm going to try and get a scale this weekend. Does anyone know of any good ones?

[PrincessErica]

Pretty much any scale will work. The one I picked up was $20 at Radio Shack and digitally measures in 1 gram increments up to like 8 lbs. or something. The only thing it didn't have was a bowl for putting the snake in, but if you zero it with the bowl on top, any old bowl will work. No need to go mental on a super fancy scale unless you're so inclined.

EDIT: One way to tell if they're underweight is whether you can see their spine or not. If your snake is of proper weight, you shouldn't be able to see the spine, but judging by your comment about your snake being triangular, I'd venture to say you can indeed see the spine. Don't stress about it too much though, after a few regular feedings of properly-sized meals, you'll start to be able to see a remarkable difference. My guy was harsh underweight when I picked him up and with regular feedings he's seriously bulked up.

[frankykeno]

Walmart sells a decent digital scale for around $30.00 (you know I really should get a flippin finder's fee from Walmart for all the stuff I push for them LOL!).
You'll want something that shows small, concise increments like a digital does.

Our other ball came to us undersized and a bit underweight from being underfed for most of it's life (18 months and only a bit bigger than our 6 month old). With slow upping every other week we have her from her diet of only 1 adult mouse per week her whole life up to 2 or 3 adult mice with absolutely no problems. Punkin is now outpacing our 6 month old in length, girth and weight so just stick to it and I'm sure you'll see an improvement in your lil one.

The only thing we did with Punky was take it slow so we didn't overwhelm her digestion process too fast with too much food that she wasn't used to. Each stage was 2 or 3 weeks at 1 mouse, then 2 or 3 weeks at 2, etc. so we could make sure she was doing okay with the increase in prey.


~~Jo~~

[aibhaeog]

When she was still underweight, did it look like her sides were "pinching in" when she breathed?
I haven't seen any discharge from her nose or mouth yet.
It won't be till at least Saturday before I can handle her and really check her out.

I'm worried about my baby!!

[new2BP]

dont get too stressed out yet. she took her first meal and if u keep the stress level down she should eat again next week. she will gain wieght but it may take a couple weeks before she gains it. remember these animals are designed to go a long time between meals. if u keep the temps were they are, the humidity were it is, and offer her hides on both sides she will do great. I find my BP prefers temp around 86 F after she eats. my hot hide is always around 92 - 95 and my low hide is ussually 82. occasionally it jumps up to 85 or 86 and that is when she stays in her cool hide after a meal. if the cool hide is 82 she ussually finds an area near the hot side that is around 85 F. Although there are times when she wants to be in the hot hide. after a while u will see a patern in what your snake preferes. each snake has a preference, and i was told that all we can do is offer them what they need. Try keeping a log book of her activities. Good luck. i am a newbie as well and still learning everyday.

nate.........cheers

[frankykeno]

Yes I would say when Punkin was underweight there was a difference in how she looked when she breathed compared to our other one Baby whose never been underweight. Hard to describe but more of a pronounced breathing where her sides moved inward more than Baby's would. Remember tho Punkin was not severely underweight, she was more undersize in both weight and length for a snake her age due to a life of barely maintenance feeding (compared to feeding that would have allowed proper growth in length and weight). She was not horribly triangular, just more triangular than a properly fed snake her size should have been.

Have you found a local vet that has snake experience? You may want to consider taking the snake in for a check-up and fecal to make sure that this low weight isn't caused by any physical problem. Our vet will see a snake and do sexing for around $50.00 and another small fee for fecal sampling (if you call around they should quote on this for you). It may be worth the extra stress on the snake now to make sure you aren't facing any issues other than just needing some peace and quiet and good tucker. I wouldn't move her tho until she's had a good 2 or 3 days to fully digest that meal.


~~Jo~~