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Heat seems to have done the trick for the female's respiratory problems. She was very nearly lost. The heat dehydrated her badly, but after several soakings in warm water, she is much better and no sign of wheezing or discharge. I doubted that soaking would help much, but she seemed to soak the water up like a sponge! After soaking a couple hours, I could see and feel the difference (I'm sure she took a nice long drink too). Now I need to get her feeding again. It's been about 7 weeks since her last feed. I am offering freshly killed mice, putting them in overnight. No luck last weekend, but will try again tomorrow. Any feeding tips are welcomed. The male is thriving, and the female does not really look too bad for lack of food yet, so I'm hopeful I can get her back up to snuff. Thanks for your previous advice. -Count Lippy (Bill Payne)

Hi,

ok, well to get the female feed again you shouldn't try leaving a mouse in the cage but should perhaps use some tweezers and play with the pre-killed mouse in front of her head. The most important when it comes to feeding wlps is that the prey has to move quickly to stimulate the python's feeding response. This is not always so but in most of the wlps I've seen it works quite good.

Don't worry about her not feeding for 7 weeks. That's not really the problem when she was dehydrated. What you can do is perhaps get some vitamine B-complex from your vet. This could help to bring back a good condition of the python. Anyway, keep on trying feeding her but give her some time. In my experience wlps only refuse food when they "know" that their body functions can't handle the stress of digesting at this time. Might sound funny but that's how it always looked to me.
Provide a large water bowl where she can lay into and she will know when to soak, too.

Good luck and keep us updated!

Cheers,
Wulf
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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

Hi,

well I was just wondering...

I re-read your privious post and you said that temps are about 85-90 F which would be ok though. No wlp would dehydrate at these temps if you also have a humidity at 70-80%.

What happend that she dehydrated? Did you use the heating pad and she was always laying on it? Didn't you get the humidity level constantly? Get me write, I'm not offending you but I just can't imagine that if the temp and the humidity is ok why should she dehydrate?

How did you check your humidity level and how the temps?

Cheers,
Wulf
-----
http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

Hey Count -

My experience with this species consists only of keeping one animal for three years. But as far as feeding goes, he responds as do most of the snakes I keep with heat pits. Assuming they are already in the mood to feed, they like the food to be warm and moving, especially warm. Many don’t like the food to be so bold as to come right up and bump into their noses. But having their normal food come strolling by (on tweezers) and pause near their heat pits usually does the trick. If at that point they show interest but just don’t pull the trigger, then having the food gently brush against a coil and tremble a bit is often irresistible and initiates the desired strike and constrict reaction.

I envy those keepers who say they just put room-temperature dead food in their pythons' cages and have them feed. That works with my blood pythons. But others, like most of my ball pythons, would surely starve to death if food were presented that way. They seem to “smell” the food, but do not recognize the body in their cage as the food item.

-Joan

For heat, I am using a light and reflector placed low against one end of the cage. This was making a temp of about 90f at the top of the cage abpve the light, so I estimate it was 95f to 100f. at the spot where she was laying. At firs, I left the light on around the clock, and she would lay there almost all day, pressed right up against the glass soaking up the heat. I had a water bowl ,but no other source of humidity nor any way to monitor the humidity. As her condition improved,she spent less time in the basking spot and I started using the light only 8-10 hrs a day. She was hiding most of the time, and sice I didn't want to stress her, I pretty much left her alone until feeding of cage cleaning time. When I noticed what I believed to be symptoms of dehydration (glazed eyes, sunken windpipe, low body weight, sluggish behavior) I immediately gave her a lons soak in a closed container (so the air was super-humid in there too). This seemed to do wonders, and she looked better and felt heavier after the soak. I am watching her more closely now and soaking her for about 1/2 hour once or twice a week. She is thinner from not eating, but does not appear to be dehydrated and is acting "normally" again, in fact she has been showing signs of looking for food the last couple days, so I'm hopeful next time will be successful. As to the feeding, the way I'm offering food is the way that was recommended by the guy I got them from, and seems to work well with the male, and did with her at first. If she doesn't take food this way the next time, I will try tease feeding her. Thanks for your tips. If she doesn't feed soon, I will take her to a vet and see what they think. -Count Lippy (Bill Payne) ps. Here's a pic of her exhibiting the odd behavior i described awhile back, encircling the lip at the top of the tank. BP

Hi,

well ok, now you sure have seen how important it is monitoring the humidity. I don't want to blame you but you should get one of these analog instruments for a couple of bucks to keep your wlp alive. These animals are not as tolerant as ball pythons or even Morelia sp. A good thing to do if you can't keep up humidity leven is to provide her a box filled with moist(?) moos.
That works very good with my 6 animals.

The behavior you describe and the picture you are shown is quite common behavior in wlps, though. They are always looking for a higher place to bask or to shelter and by doing so they will definitly find any error in cage design! One of my males loved to get into the security cage I built around the spot to protect the animals from getting burned. Thank god that he did this at night so I was able to get him out there and to fix the error before the animals got burned. I have already mentioned this at my homepage (www.leiopython.de) and I have had many responses from other wlp owners that their animals doing the same.

If your female wlp loves the place above try to get the temp to a normal range by using a weaker spot or so. You should also provide a hide box in a "darker" area of the cage.

take care,

Cheers,
Wulf
-----
http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com