I've put more blood, sweat, and tears into this animal than I could even believe possible. I never knew I had it in me to shove a tube down the throat of an animal.



I'm glad to hear that I shouldn't be concerned yet. What you both said makes sense, and she really doesnt look fat and impacted on the bottom 1/3. She needs all the nutrients she can get!



She's only hard to handle if she's spooked. I can handle her bare-handed, but if something scares her she's a striking machine. I still can't believe she hasn't tagged me. What I usually do is cover her up with a towel or pillowcase before I grab her, that way she doesn't freak out and can't see my hand coming towards her. I'll get her out and see how she feels in a few days, but I want to leave her alone for a bit after yesterday's bathtub fiasco.



The herp vet here is fantastic, so if I run into any major problems I'll have no problem taking the snake to him.



She has access to fresh water, and I will continue the baths. Any hints on how I can make these less stressful for her? All I did was run water in the tub, adjust the temp, and put her in. She swam around for a minute or two, then sat perfectly still, coiled and ready. I left her in for 15 minutes. How often should I bahe her? Weekly, biweekly?



I've been making it a point to feed her prey items that are a tad smaller than she'd take if she were a healthy animal. Her first feeding after the tubings were done was a single adult mouse. The second and third feedings consisted of 2 adult mice, and the last feeding was a small rat. I believe she could easily take 2 small rats or a medium one at this point, but I'd rather feed her smaller meals until I'm sure she's in the clear. She has the most incredible feeding response and is finished eating in a matter of minutes.



You're right, she's only shed once since I've had her in my possession. Prior to that she was shedding like clockwork eery 2 weeks, nasty sheds in tiny pieces that she couldnt' even get off herself, she was that weak. I'd have to manually pull the sheds off of her before she'd go right into another shed cycle again.



This brings up another question of mine. Below I've posted pics of the boa, and I'm not sure if you can see or not but she has a lot of white areas around her scales. Is this because she was shedding so frequently that her scales didn't have enough time to grow in before the next shed? (I don't know if that makes any sense, I just kind of made it up). Since I've had her, the scales are seeming to grow back in to their full length and the white areas around each scale are disappearing. It can't be because she was so thin, because you'd think that as she gained weight her body would be stretching. What do you think?



Thanks again for the input, and here are some pics of the BRB in question... I have affectionately named her "Ruby". It's gonna break my heart when she leaves.



The first pic was taken the day she came to me, Jan 5. The second pic was taken 6 weeks later, after her final tube feeding, Feb 9, which was a momentus day (and photo!) as she was finally able to hold up her own body weight again (before it was like holding a skipping rope). I'll take a more recent pic and post it soon.

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