HELP! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!

[Sierra0101]

I don't know where else to turn. I am scared to death.
Stick with me guys..
I have a 2007 Jungle Boa (Male;about 5 foot, not sure if that matters...) who is very healthy, eats every other week...sheds great no health issues at all whatsoever (last time I checked).

I had him in with one of my females to breed, along with another male to get him going.. monitored of course. He's been in and out for the past two weeks (showing no interest) and I just put him back in yesterday...

Females substrate is pine shavings. In his bin, he has newspaper. He was in the pine shavings with her obviously..

I walk in about 20 minutes ago and I see his mouth kind of drooping open...I started watching him to see what was going on, then I saw some pine shavings in his mouth and something in his mouth. I thought he might be regurgitating but he hasn't eaten since mid-October, due to breeding. I took him out to observe him and put him in a bin and he starting foaming at the mouth and twisting his body. He looked like he was having some sort of muscle spasm and curling his body (uncontrollably?) up. He was stiff-ish, flexing his muscles, holding strong? Then it stopped. He closed his mouth, flicked his tongue and just relaxed..I thought he was dying. I don't know what happened, what caused this, or what to do about it. ANY help or explanation will surely be appreciated. Please, I am scared to death. Call me; text me, but do NOT pm me. I need to know what happened now, not later when I come back on. 845-665-6842. Thank you.

Has this happened to you before?

 

[Metachrosis]

Sounds like he is fine now ?
Likely the substrate in his mouth caused a panic attack due to him being unable
to remove it.
Decompress yourself and let all that freak out energy LEAVE!
Im sure he is fine,but to make sure I would inspect his mouth for any other debris
Hopefully you have a bakers spatula,silicone of plastic to wedge in his mouth for a quick peek ?
Other then that just let him chill over night in his own digs and put the slacker back to the task in the morning.

 

[Sierra0101]

LMFAO! Thank you Tommy. That makes me feel so much better. I needed that. I appreciate it.

 

[Sierra0101]

Hey Tommy. I regret to tell you that you were wrong. He died this morning.

 

[Fangthane]

Sucks to hear that he didn't make it. Surprised no one pointed this out already, but have you considered that maybe the pine shavings had something to do with it? Considering the timing, that seems to be a variable that's worth thinking about. The oils in pine and cedar seem to be pretty toxic to snakes. The fact that the female is doing fine on pine may not mean a whole lot. Reptiles are kinda fickle at times. What one animal can adapt to may just kill another. Just something to consider.

 

[Snakesitter]

I'm sorry for your loss, Sierra. I agree with Dan that the pine could be the possible issue....but it could always be something else. Are you having a necropsy done to investigate (and protect the other two snakes he shared a viv with)?

 

[Metachrosis]

Very sorry he passed on you,forgive me for not catching the mention of pine substrate.I would suspect he was the sensitive type and succumb
to the oil/tar content of that particular wood.(Poisoning)
Most folks learn this early on in husbandry research and forum chatter,the topic comes up acouple times every year when noobs hit the hobby.

I have seen my animals flip out when something is stuck in their mouth
They flip/flop all over the place till I can get a hold see what the issue is.

I have two Hondurans that are wickedly intense about feeding
I lay a rat on the newspaper end of the cage and they hit it so hard
they snag the paper and roll the whole mess up trying to kill a dead rodent.
Paper hung in their back teeth just flips them out,just like chunks of aspen
that are impaled on the teeth,sort of a DUURRR moment in some respects but injury is emanate with all that banging.

Females substrate is pine shavings. In his bin, he has newspaper. He was in the pine shavings with her obviously..

I walk in about 20 minutes ago and I see his mouth kind of drooping open...I started watching him to see what was going on, then I saw some pine shavings in his mouth and something in his mouth. I thought he might be regurgitating but he hasn't eaten since mid-October, due to breeding. I took him out to observe him and put him in a bin and he starting foaming at the mouth and twisting his body. He looked like he was having some sort of muscle spasm and curling his body (uncontrollably?) up.
Has this happened to you before?

Its a lesson learned and a clear warning to others!

 

[KORBIN5895]

Yeah except most pine shavings are kiln dried to remove the oils.

Could he have been dehydrated? I saw something similar happen to a dehydrated corn but he didn't recover from the spasms .

 

[Sierra0101]

Yes he had water. Temps were maintained around 80 degrees ambient (cooler temps this time of year) about 55% humid. I believe that the pine shavings and him ingesting some was the ultimate cause.

 

[KORBIN5895]

You're probably right.

 

[Fangthane]

Yeah except most pine shavings are kiln dried to remove the oils.

Kiln drying doesn't really "remove" anything. It's simply an accelerated process for drying it out. When the dried shavings are put back into a warm and humid environment, they can re-absorb water, which makes the oils viable again. I'd imagine that snake saliva would yield the same result.

Given that he was ostensibly fine up until the point where he had the pine in his mouth, I think that's just too much of a coincidence to ignore. Have you considered doing away with pine substrate altogether?

 

[Sierra0101]

Dan,
Yes I am getting the female off the pine shavings and I'm going to put her on shredding newspaper or something. Aspen bothers me too much. If it gets even slightly wet, it stinks to holy hell and makes me sick. So unless someone can suggest another substrate that would work better, I'm going to use shredded newspaper.

 

[Fangthane]

I was a big fan of cypress mulch. I used to get it in big bags at Lowes, and just pre-treat it as needed, with Provent-A-Mite, before using it. I can't really comment on how strong the smell is, though. Having spent a lot of time working in various wood-based jobs, I've become a bit desensitized to wood odors, I guess.

 

[Sierra0101]

Yeah cypress is an option.

 

[Durante]

you could use some indoor/outdoor or even better & cheaper maybe some newspaper or even contractor paper that they sell in rolls at home depot maybe...

 

[hhmoore]

Skip the shredded paper - it's messy, not particularly absorbant, easily ingested, and generally more trouble than it's worth. Nothing wrong with using paper, just skip the step of shedding/tearing'

 

[skirtinthedirt]

We use "painters paper" from Home Depot. It's a big cheap roll of untreated thickish brown paper that painters do....something with. For all of our guys not on shavings this works well.

 

[Sierra0101]

Thank you for the opinions. As of right now, I got her off the shavings and on newspaper (not shredded).

 

[tommyhil4_6]

Sierra, sorry for your loss. The newsprint is a great option, aspen, cypress etc. I have personally used aspen, newsprint and contractor paper. My favorite of them all was the aspen.

Being that the dampness makes you nauseated, that's obviously an issue. I just switched back to aspen and glad I did. Try the cypress and see how that'll work if you want some type of tangible substrate.

Again, I'm sorry for your loss. It is a lesson that hopefully people can learn from without repeating. Good luck!

 

[Sierra0101]

Thank you for the options, I didn't think of cypress. I'll probably give that a shot.