Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A customer of mine bougth a couple of live mice (despite that I always tell my customers to buy frozen if possible) for his ball python.

He said the next day, he looked in and it had regurgitated the mice and was dead. It was doing fine for four years.

The only thing I could think of would be:
1) Poor heat gradient (although that doesn't really explain the death)
2) Parasites in the snake, or other disease.
3) Poisonous mice??? No idea how that would have happened.

Any thoughts?

A lot of times when a snake regurgitates fluid enters their lungs and they suffocate. That is most likely why the snake died. As far as what caused the snake to regurge, it may have been a husbandry error (too high temps) or parasites. No way to tell for sure without getting a necropsy done.

We (pet store) had this happen once and the snake had torn it's esophagus ....possibly or probably from a struggling semi dead/live prey. In my mind this is another reason to not feed live.

>>A customer of mine bougth a couple of live mice (despite that I always tell my customers to buy frozen if possible) for his ball python.
>>
>>He said the next day, he looked in and it had regurgitated the mice and was dead. It was doing fine for four years.
>>
>>
>>The only thing I could think of would be:
>>1) Poor heat gradient (although that doesn't really explain the death)
>>2) Parasites in the snake, or other disease.
>>3) Poisonous mice??? No idea how that would have happened.
>>
>>Any thoughts?
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny