My Blood Boa is broken
 

Beginning of August, I introduced my Blood Boa to my '05 Kahl female to get started on my TH Bloody Sunglows. It was a tentative introduction, he's 2½ yrs now and I wanted to see if he was up to the task. And it went well for a first time too.

Removed on 8-12 for feeding, fed on the 15th, returned to her on the 18th. Still looking good, and he was even a bit more vigorous it seemed. 8-30 he gave me a turd.

9-9 removed for feeding, fed on 9-11 and reintroduced on 9-14. This introduction though, the female rampaged. She really acted like she didn't like this guy on her back all the time, and was really tearing things up. Cage cleaning the whole 2 weeks was like every other day. She tore up the paper, flipped her hide and water bowl, which wasn't easy to do, and smeared urates all over everything, including herself and the male. So I pulled him on 10-7 for feed with the intention of leaving him out for the full feed cycle, to see if she calms back down. She did at that.

HE however, refused to eat on 10-9 for the first time since I got him. Since he seemed to be having his tail wrapped over his own body, seemingly in courtship with himself, I chalked it up as him being in breeding mode, and he gets to wait till next feeding. He did attack and hiss at it though. LOL

Well, this last weekend was feed time, and also cage nuking time. When I pulled out Guku Fri 10-4 to check out his colors and tub him to do his cage, I noticed a tail that wasn't wrapping around my fingers like normal. I switch his position so I can look better, and sure enough, it's not only not wrapping on my finger like it should, it falls when I remove my finger, instead of slowly lowering like it should. Get him in better light to see if she injured him on her rampage, and I notice his tail, from the cloaca down to the tip, is in a tight s position the whole length. They straighten with little effort, but snap back to tight s' rather quickly. Watching him motor around the cage, he does fine, except i notice that his tail is lolling to the side, and often curls up.

My Herp Vet just left the house, he'll be out of town continuing education from tomorrow until the 18th. On the 19th we'll get X-Rays and see if they tell anything, and possibly a CAT scan if needed.

On a more personal note, I gotta say, THIS SUCKS! You have no idea how disturbed I am at the moment. He's the only actual INVESTMENT animal in my collection, I bought him for a specific purpose, and I paid a handsome sum for him. Now I may not get to go through with it. This has to be a sign. I've taken a lot of blows over the years, Aurora being the biggest by far, but this one is about enough to throw in the towel. This was the project that was suppose to put that passion back in my life. I am just fed up with the unnecessary adversity, the slime that runs rampant in our industry, the other slime that stands up for them and condones their bull crap, just fed up with it all.

Anyway, Happy Veterans Day! :beer:

Jesus Paisan, I am sorry for the turn of events....I hope his injury isn't permament.

I hope it's just a minor injury, Rich, and his reluctance to move is swelling and tenderness. I'd hate to see someone like you give up. :-/

Sorry to hear this, but hopefully he's fixable - and if he got broken because he was breeding a bit TOO vigorously maybe he'll cool down and do things right in the future.... even if with a bit of a limp.....

I hope everything works out for the snake as well as you Rick. I know you take great care of your animals and it shows. I also know how much you've looked forward to possible offspring from that animal.

Chris

oh well shoot, I am so sorry to hear this Rick! Like others have said, hopefully it's something that the vet can confirm will correct itself and just a result of his 'excitement' over seeing a lady for the 1st time. Hoping for a good outcome, don't lose faith

^^ What James said. ^^ We need more keepers like you in the industry!

Thanks everyone. I'm hoping for the best too.

The vet did ponder on it a bit, and suggested maybe he already had a spinal issue, and I just never noticed it. I told him I had about a hundred pictures that say otherwise any time he felt like looking at them. He thought that was interesting, and elaborated a bit with an example. If you bend over and throw your back out, it wasn't from bending over, it was because you have a bad back. Could be he had something going on, and the courtship is why it presented itself. He was just speculating though. We'll hopefully know more on the 19th.

I still have my doubts on that pre-existing thing, just going by all the handling I've done, and all the admiring. But he is a fabulous vet, a Diplomat in the vet society and the Zoo Vet out here for 15 yrs, so I have to keep an open mind, because he just knows way more then me.

Thanks again everyone.

Good luck with whatever it is. I hope your vets speculation is off and it simply turns out to be his over exuberance or something along those lines. Hoping for the best for him and for you!

Took a few pictures this weekend, mostly for the vets reference, but thought I'd share here too. He came out for a stroll after I sprayed down the viv.

Here he is just wondering what it is I'm up too...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...u/DSC_3921.jpg

This one shows the curl I was describing earlier. It's weird because it will take about 3 laps around the viv for it to straighten out on it's own...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...u/DSC_3909.jpg

A picture after I was looking at his tail, and undid the curl. Notice the kinky looking s shapes are all but gone except at the lower end of the tail...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...u/DSC_3910.jpg

The next pic is a GIF I put together right after the pic above. As soon as he started motoring back to his hide, the kinky s shapes returned. It's just so weird because he does have control of the tail, but if you watch the next GIF, you'll notice how it first lolls to one side, then to the other...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ku/TailGIF.gif


Upon further investigation, it would appear that the kink down at the tip doesn't want to straighten out when I examine his tail. I don't want to force it though, so hard to tell if it's actually a kink, or if it's the muscles holding it that way.

Anyway, it's going to be a long week.