Ease my worries.

[Samuel]

Alright .. so I am going nuts trying to calm myself down about something. My snake, Tenac, is really restless tonight. Today was feeding day, and he did not eat ... which is not a huge deal and not completely unexpected because he is about due for a shed, and he is looking a bit dull ... so I was almost expecting it.

The thing that makes me worry though is his restlessness. He is doing a lot of things that I would say may be associated with major health woes .. such as looking up a lot, but never a constant "stare" .. just a lot of upward looking, moving, and looking. My worried mind immediately went "WTF!? IBD!?!??!?!?!". I took him out and watched him carefully. There is not mucus, no breathing funky, no tongue strangeness (if anything, he is flicking it more and faster than usual). I took him, placed him on his back like 10 times and each time he corrected himself within a second or two. The only other thing I have seen him do tonight is yawn, but I have seen that before and many times since I have owned him.

So .. is this combo of observations worth being this worried over. I have 2 new snakes comin in tomorrow, and I know that proper quarantine precaution should and would help, but I am just worried about the whole thing.

HELP!

[Thor26]

sounds like hes lookin for a way out of his enclosure or it could be that he is hungry and in feeding mode. keep an eye on temps and humidity to just in case

[rabernet]

If he has not been exposed to any other snakes (especially boas) in the last month or two, you can rule out IBD as a scare. IBD kills pythons, usually within 30 days of exposure. It is a swift killer of pythons.

Has anything changed in his enclosure or location recently? Constant roaming around signals to me that my snakes are stressed out (if it's not the normal late night roaming) and I work to reduce the stress by reducing my handling to almost nothing, as well as filling the enclosure with loosely crumpled newspaper, so that the snake can feel things touching it on all sides, which helps to settle them down (a Kevin McCurley tip that's been used by many keepers here).

[fishmommy]

Mine is like that at night...every night. He's an active little bugger and will check out the ceiling as much as the walls.

it's always good to double check your husbandry, but beyond that I would chalk it up to either the recent feeding attempt or the impending shed. Do you provide a high humidity area for shedding? He might be looking for a more humid spot if he's going into blue