Greetings

I have a red-tail boa born 2/2/08. Unsexed--I call her "Brigid", my bf calls him "Twilight". Last night, and again this morning, Brigid appears to me to be star-gazing: head and 5-6 inches of neck are raised for an extended period of time ( I have not actually been timing). I know that I have some husbandry issues to resolve: a) room temp is constant 79/ 81 degrees, over the tank ceramic heater (only heat source) is reading 86; b) humidity is stupidly low (28%); bedding is a soil/bark mix bought at the pet store a while ago (may need replacing at this point); c) she just and passed urates yesterday or Wed, which I just cleaned yesterday, and is now due to eat again (jumbo frozen rats from Petco). So I probably need to up the heater a bit and the humidity a lot. She is somewhat responsive to tapping on glass, and is responsive to my contact. When I took her out last night, her grip is good, she seemed pretty curious (especially about the snake in the bathroom mirror), and generally seemed to know which way was up. I did not actually try to flip her to see if she could really right herself.
She's not open mouth breathing, and I did not notice anything wrong with her breathing (wheezing etc) when I had her out. No noticeable mucus/discharges.

One other significant fact: her father, Midnight, died of IBD, and her mother Freya, was put down for a RI which I can only presume was also part of IBD. I posted at least a couple of times here about our situation--- this is our one baby that I kept and who has been going strong now for 3 years.

So the Qs are: 1)how much should I be worried at this point?
2) once I adjust the heat and humidity, if she continues, if star-gazing is the only symptom, how long should I wait before taking her to the vet? And no, I've not had her to the vet yet at all---if I had, we'd know what sex she/he really is.

Thank you for your time. Any input would be appreciated. The support and information I've received here in the past was, and continues to be, deeply appreciated. We lost a lot (3 adults, 50 babies/ 2 litters) to IBD. I don't wish that on anyone.

Sincerely,
Antigone

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]