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I have a six year old Jungle, just over 8 1/2 feet long that has been apparently healthy since I got her at a few months old. She will not take rats and eats about 20 mice a week, give or take. Yesterday I fed her chicks, which I've done every summer since I've had her, and today she regurgitated three of them, which she's never done. She has never refused a meal, and definetly never thrown one up. I happened to walk by and saw her on the floor of her cage which is strange after eating, and she then started constricting, a ton of gas came out, and she threw up three of the six birds she had eaten over 24 hours earlier. She seems okay now because she immediately went back up on her basking ledge but I'm worried. Anyone else encounter this? Again, she's been in apparently good health, and it was a solid ten days since her last meal. Any help would be greatly appreciated, E-

Make that all six birds.

Three areas that I would consider first:

1) Temps: Check DT high and NT lows to be sure they are in the proper ranges and be sure you have a proper temperature gradient from one side to the other. An enclosure saturated with heat or above a normal high temp range it could explain the problem. If the temps are are too low, she may not be digesting properly. I would start with the Temps. Almost every time I have encountered problems with food coming back up with healthy animals has been due to temps that are out of their desired ranges (usually too hot). The only other times I have encountered this with healthy animals was from feeding something that was larger than the animal could physically manage to keep down.

2) Are you feeding too much or too often: Do a gut check on the size of the food item or the quantity of food items you are feeding. As an animal ages, it metabolism may slow down a bit which means you may not have to feed as much or as often as you did while the animal was still young and had a much faster metabolism. To me the numbers you are throwing at her on a weekly basis seems a bit high. Maybe try feeding fewer at a time and space them out a little further.

3) Do you have any other pythons that may have been housed with her temporarily in the past month or two? Many females reject their food during their gestation period. In other words, if there was another snake of the opposite sex in the cage with her, she may have become gravid and be within a few weeks of laying her eggs. Even if you only had another snake with her for a few hours and even if they were not temperature cycyled and even if it was more than two months ago (sperm retention) they could have bred. And as we are seeing more and more often, this can happen even if they were two different python species! (Also, if she had previously laid a clutch of eggs you would not want to start her right off at the amount of food she was prevoiusly eating. Her digestive system would most likely not be able to handle the same load as pre-lay feeding.)

Other Avenues to pursue:

4) Switch back to rodents for a while and see if they stay down before jumping to any conclusions.

5) Inspect the refused food really closely to be sure there are no parasitic worms contained in the pile of yuck. There are a number of these nasty little gems which could have come from a prekilled feeder item.

6) Dont rule out Salmonella. Althought this is a long shot, it is still a possibility and even more so with poultry. If not maintainer properly, poultry of any sort can transmit this bacteria which could cause this type of symptom.

Hope this helps

Chris

feel her belly and make sure there are no lumps and she is passing all her food. I've seen it before when they get impacted and the food can't pass with a robust snake you may need to palpate to feel the impation.

I believe the temps are too high. It has been extremely hot here, and the ambient night temps are in the mid 70's, and I have not adjusted her heat emitters. Night temps have probably been in the mid 80's which is a little high. I guess the strange part is, nothing has changed in years, she has always been kept alone, under the same conditions, same temps, same cage, same house. So it just struck me as wierd that all of a sudden there was a problem. I am going to give her some time, then try rodents again. I currently cannot keep frozen mice in the house, because of the woman, so I feed fresh killed. At 20 mice a week thats hard on the soul. Thanks for your well thought out responses, I really appreciate it, Eric-

LOL....the woman would have to go
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1.1 Blackheaded pythons
1.1 Woma
2.0 Aussie Olives
1.1 Timors
1.1 Bloods
1.1 Balls
2.1 IJ Carpets
1.0 Coastal Carpets
1.2 Macklotts
1.1 Papuan Olives
2.0 Jungle Carpet
0.1 Carpondro
0.1 Jungle/Diamond cross
.1 Brazilian Rainbow boas
0.1 child, CB
0.1 wife, WC