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Need help with skinny import

PlatinumRosePythons

PlatinumRosePythons

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I have a female imported girl that is very skinny and not interested in food at all. I've tried frozen thawed mice, rats, ASFR's, and day old chicks as well as a live gerbil. All attempts have resulted in failure, especially the live gerbil who is now a pet. She was terrified of it, hissing and flying out of the cage like a spooked green mamba I once saw on a youtube video! She's being kept in my closet with a blanket over her tank at the instruction of my vet. She's also been de-wormed again at the instruction of my vet. She had a clutch of eggs about 2 months ago and I noticed she never shed after she had them and is still looking a bit 'glowy'. Vet palpated her and said there's no eggs left in her. Her hot spot is between 90-95 degrees at vet's instruction and I don't bother her except to leave food in her tank once a week. She's on aspen bedding with a log hide. I'm very concerned she's going to die of starvation! Pictures were taken a week ago.
 

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If it helps yo relax I had a female Super Pastel that went 1 year without eating before she started eating again....
Did you wash her off after she laid the eggs...if she still smells the eggs she wont eat...being shes an import welcome to BP's....
I think your temps are to high...never really gets above 90 degrees in Ghana nor below 70.
I would stick to the ASF's...twenty plus years ago that is all we could get them to eat.
Travis
 
Ball pythons don't need to be washed off after laying to get them eating again. They will also eat while on eggs. We resume normal cleaning on tubs after they hatch, and never wash down the females unless they get dirty.
That temp is rather high and there is no need to keep it above 85. She doesn't look too bad weight wise. They can and sometimes do go off feed for months at a time or even a year. Just keep offering. Maybe try small prey items.
 
Thanks for the advice guys! As for food size, I have offered her a f/t rat pup twice but still no interest. Also tried teasing and assist feeding her. The teasing freaked her out. If she even sees her prey act like it's alive she immediately goes into flight mode. Poor girl has quite a few bad bites on her too. I don't think I'll be offering live again, seems to stress her out way to much. She was soaked after laying but never showed interest in her clutch. I think she was to stressed out, I had only had her a month when she layed and we were still getting used to each other. I will be lowering her temps to around 88.

I think I may need to find a new snake vet. My current vets advice seems fishy. She told me I needed to raise Savannah's (import gal) temps to 95 and get her a bigger enclosure than a 20g long tank because in the wild they have all of Africa to roam. She also told me that she doesn't recommend using aspen because of the small pieces of wood and yet she recommends reptile bark as a replacement. Doesn't reptile bark have small pieces of wood too? She also didn't seem to be happy with my breeding snakes, which is a bit problematic.
 
I was going to ask if she ate for you before, but I suppose not if she was close to laying eggs.

Have you tried leaving the food item with her overnight?
 
An old breeder told me once to try scenting with tuna juice ... not sure on the validity of that or if it works (seems like an odd scent for a snake).

Is she drinking at least? If so, I wouldn't worry too much.
 
Snake-Queen said:
An old breeder told me once to try scenting with tuna juice ... not sure on the validity of that or if it works (seems like an odd scent for a snake).

Is she drinking at least? If so, I wouldn't worry too much.
Click to expand...

Yes she does drink thankfully! I'll have to try the tuna, hopefully I can stomach the smell!
 
Take it to the vet and have them do a cloaca wash to check for Trichomonads under a microscope. Fairly simple procedure.

Metronidazole treatment should knock anything out and get her back on track. Even then a metronidazole treatment or injection is an appetite stimulant. While metronidazole (flagyl) can kill bad protozoans, it can also kill good ones, so it's important that the snake is treated properly with dosage and usage.

Please refer to this link:
http://www.helium.com/items/1975265-diarrhea-in-snakes
 
Worm treatment such as panacure does nothing for parasites.

Your best bet for a feed response following treatment would be a live mouse. Or a live ASF. After beginning to eat, more than likely she will eat anything after that...
 
I have some good and bad news. Good news is we know what's wrong with her. Bad news is it's serious. She's eggbound with very small shrunken malformed eggs that couldn't be felt by palpating. Both the vet and I palpated her and never felt anything. Vet thinks it's from a lack of calcium. The vet did a cloacal wash on her and she passed a huge amount of stool, enough to fill the whole tube! The vet says we're gonna start forcefeeding her calcium supplement and hope the eggs form better so she can pass them. If that doesn't work then worst case scenario she's gonna need surgery. She's also on Metronidazole once a day for 7 days. Throughout all this she was an angel surprisingly.
 

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Very cool picture. Sorry to hear about her, hopefully the calcium supplements help and she makes a full recovery without needing surgery.
 
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