Heavy breathing?

[tweets_4611]

I don't want to come off as rude, but the fact that you are so willing to just take it back instead of fixing what is wrong bothers me. Snakes will get sick. They will get stressed out. They will go off feed. They will need vet visits. If you aren't willing to take the snake to the vet at some point, I, personally don't believe that you should keep one yet.

Now, the snakes from PetCo are not exactly considered the healtiest of all animals. They are treated like a stock item there, and not like an animal. Noone on this forum can tell you what is wrong with your snake. Only a vet can do that. We can only guess and kinda poke at what is wrong from our own experiances. Especially since we can't see the animal. If you really want to start off with a healthy animal, you *could* take it back to PetCo and contact a breeder. There are many on this site that really care for their animals, and don't sell sick snakes. But the thing is, even if you start with a completely healthy snake, it could still get sick. Say you take this guy back and get another one? What happens with the new one gets sick or goes of feed? You can't just keep taking them back when they break.

Now if you keep this snake, it is a real possiblity that it has an RI, or parasites. But like I said, noone can tell you online if that's what it is or not. If it is an RI, there are some people that believe if you catch it early enough you can just raise the temps and it will go away. Others believe that it can only go away with antibiotics. Parasites will only get worse until they make the snake really sick. If you choose to not take it to a vet, there is no way to know. It will either get better and start eating, or it won't.

I'll get off my soapbox here. I really hope your snake starts eating for you. It is worrysome to have a pet that isn't eating. But like with any animal, it's either going to need the vet now, or later, and you need to be willing to take it when it's needed.