Does your Rosy ever regurgitate?

I have a female Coastal Rosy that has had problems keeping food down for several years now. I'll take her to the vet and give her antibiotics but inevitably the problem returns after 6 months or so. I bought a 4X2X2 ft cage for her and the 3 other Rosies I have. It has a ceramic heater in it and I keep the cage at 84 on the warm end and 80-82 on the cool end. I know controlling the temperature is extremly important. I quit using regular aquariums because I felt they got too cool too easily. Does anyone else have problems with their Rosy keeping it's food down?

I think that rosies like it hotter than 84 degrees. Try heating the warm end to 90 degrees and keep the cooler end between 75-80. That way, there's more of a thermal gradient than the 4 degrees that you are now offering them. In a 4 foot cage, the heat dissipates much faster. Another consideration.....with 3 other rosies in the same cage, maybe this one problem rosy is being pushed out from the prime hot spot. You could also try supplemental belly heat as ceramic heaters only heat a small spot directly below them.....or get a second ceramic heater to expand the hot spot. That would probably be the easiest fix.....you get a bigger hot spot and the temp will be higher with 2 heaters. Reguritation is almost always a problem of not enough heat.

Scott Nellis

You should give them a cool side in the high 70s, and the warm end is fine. Also provide a basking spot in the mid 90s. This may be a tad difficult to accomplish, but inevitably will help her keep food down.
Cool the tank down a bit at night, take the basking spot away, and have the tank a nice gradient of 84 warm end, to about 75 on the cool end.
This should help with her. Try smaller food items as well.

i have one male rosy boa that if the cage gets above 85 will regurge and if the humidity gets above 30-40% he will regurge
so i dont agree with the 90 plus temp

I guess all animals are different then.
Some of my snakes wont ever eat if I dont give em a hot spot.
I guess you just need to figure out what works with your individual specimen.

Keeping the warm end at 90 degrees worked for her. The smaller male was always able to keep food down at cooler temperatures and that's what made it hard to figure out.

I think that it can be a bit difficult to get a good temperature gradient using lights in a small tank. You want to have a warm spot in the low to mid 90's and at the same time have the cool end drop below 80. I have UTH's as the sole heating mechanisms on my tanks. There is a hide above each UTH and there is about 2-3 inches of aspen for substrate. There is a water bowl on the cool end.

I don't have a humidity issue so I have water available at all times. Sometimes in the summer the cool end will get above 80, but most days it stays in the low to mid 70s. When my female was gravid, she'd go into her hide and get down low in the substrate over the UTH. We had a few hot days where the temp in my room got into the 90s on these days she came out and coiled around her ceramic water bowl (she did this like clockwork when it got hot) presumably to bring her body temperature down.

With UTH's there isn't the issue of heating up the air like there is with lights so it's possible to have a 95 degree hot spot in the hide over the UTH and still have air temps on the cool side in the low 70's in a 10 or 15 gallon tank. If your room ever heats up, there is also less chance of the heat getting to dangerous levels. My female delivered 4 big full term healthy babies.

Besides temperature and humidity, large meals have been known to lead to problems with regurgitation. Since your female has problems, it would be better to give her smaller food items more frequently rather than single large meals. Excessive drinking after a meal has also been known to lead to regurgitation. If you suspect this could be a contributing factor you may want to with hold water for a couple of days after feeding.

Was your rosy captive bred or wild caught? Many wild caught rosys are infected with cryptosporidium (I remember reading 80%). If this parasite gets to high levels it can lead to regurgitation and thickening of the stomach wall. This can impair the snake's ability to keep down meals especially large ones. This parasite is highly contagious so even if cb, it's possible your snake was infected. If husbandry doesn't seem to be a factor, it may be worth getting her tested before you expose another snake to her. Crypto is most reliably detected from a gastric lavage and acid fast staining. It is only shed intermittently in the feces and due to its small size can be very difficult to detect without the acid fast staining. If you suspect something like crypto, practice strict quarantine and wash your hands after handling her or anything she's come in contact with before handling your other snakes, and don't swap water bowls or play musical mice.

Since the infection rate in wild rosys is so high, and most properly maintained wild caught rosys do just fine, infection with a parasite like crypto is survivable for rosys. But if the animal becomes stressed, and its immune system compromised (dirty tank with exposure to feces, improper temps, improper humidity etc) the parasite can multiply leading to damage. You'd have to carefully weigh the risks when deciding to put a male with her for breeding.

-Alice