Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok... my blood python went to the vet about 2 months back with urate lumps near his vent. They x-rayed him, soaked him, and squeezed the lumps out. I of course didn't get to see how they did this. I've been giving him weekly soakings but he still won't go on his own. He has a large water dish available to him. The people on the blood python forum say not to worry because they just don't go very often. Well, today he has another lump! I don't like this. He weighs something around 500 grams (a baby) and has an excellent appetite for small rats. Any suggestions? I'm soaking him right now and am contemplating trying the squeezing procedure.

Squeezing prodcedure successful. We got three white lumps the size of stinky grapes. We stopped after that because I was worried about squeezing him into a prolapse. He was remarkably good about it. I'd REALLY like to prevent this from happening in the future.

I had some baby balls who were going through this same situation. Poor little things swelled all up and turned blue at one point. Anyway, point is that there was an underlying problem that was causing it. They were eventually treated for an intestinal infection, and it stopped recurring. Just a heads up. It was not something that my vet had detected at first. I have no idea why this is happening to your blood. Just thought I'd relate that so you could be aware.

Good luck,
GratefulFred
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GratefulFred

WOW, I'm glad he's not as bad as that!
How did your vet diagnose this infection? I'm going to try raising his ambient humidity and see if that helps, but if it doesn't I'll look into that possibility.

Unfortunately, this was not diagnosed until a necropsy was done on a sibling. However, I do believe that more could have been done, had I had a more competant vet. Even a simple fecal in the begining may have been more revealing. I don't know. Everthing my vet did was done on my insistance. I hope your vet is better than mine! I believe that my vet actually killed of many of my snakes through his ignorance.
Hoping that you don't have the problems I did! Your snake is probably OK. It's just better to dignose in early stages if possible.

Best of luck to you,
GratefulFred
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GratefulFred

There are two vets at the clinic I go to, the one is pretty decent but the other one (who looked at my blood) I'm not too happy with. They dewormed my little guy without asking me first but didn't do a fecal on him. So what kind of sense does that make? Constipation, I guess, is kind of a vague symptom. So if he gets it again I'm going to go back... and request the good vet.

Hi –

Sorry you’re having such trouble. My take on blood pythons’ retention of feces and urate solids for long periods is that it may be common in captivity, but it sure isn’t normal. And like you, I’ve found it difficult to remain complacent while those rock hard lumps accumulate and the animal starts to fill up like a sausage. Sure, they usually don’t seem to be in any imminent danger of dying. And, after all, part of the problem is that they continue to accept sometimes gargantuan quantities of food in one end and then they process it so well in the middle, before it moves to the end of the line and stops.

I believe this problem is primarily caused by too low humidity. Even if a snake drinks plenty of water and is well hydrated, it will still suffer if the ambient humidity isn’t high enough. In my experience, it is most pronounced in hatchlings and juveniles, and can lessen or resolve completely in adulthood. I wouldn’t discount lack of movement in a confined cage environment as having a little to do with the problem. Most keepers would probably laugh at that since bloods are so notoriously lethargic. But I would suggest that in the wild, very small animals might have to do somewhat more searching for appropriately-sized prey than do larger specimens.

I’ve never seen you describe how your animal is set up. In the past, as long as I kept hatchling blood pythons in minimally-vented plastic containers like sweater boxes, I found that they eliminated about as frequently as any other python species and shed unassisted in one or two pieces. As soon as I moved young ones to a standard reptile cage with screening (like a Neodesha or Vision), or, worse, a screened-top aquarium, it was like flipping a light switch – off in this case. Elimination ceased, usually for months at a time, except for passage of liquid urates. And dysecdysis often accompanied this change. The oft-given advice to just soak ‘em never worked for me. I got plenty good at manually expressing the urates, and making sure all the retained feces followed, too. Result – very flat snake good to go for a few months more. If you are gentle but persistent and let the cloaca dilate slowly, you should be successful, without any tearing or prolapse. Your “brutathane” is just as good as that used by your vet in the back room. The quick fix doesn’t deal with the underlying cause. Obviously, you want to work to get the humidity problem solved, but meanwhile I think it’s smart to help nature along if the urate solids build up keeps recurring.

At some point towards maturity, they just seem to grow out of the worst of it. But you still have to keep the humidity up without allowing them to lie on constantly wet substrate. I actually do the opposite of what I see recommended. I keep the substrate in their hides dry to only slightly damp, but spray parts of their cages heavily with a pump-up style garden sprayer during the months of low humidity. I’ve never felt that I’ve got it just right and so I keep experimenting.

-Joan

The funny thing is that he shed in one piece last time, even though his ambient humidity is probably only around 60%. So I thought I was ok humidity wise but now I guess not. I'm changing his setup today, though. I'm between moving him to a largish plastic container or just giving him a humidity box. I try to give him some exercise out of his cage but he doesn't enjoy it too much!