Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ive have an adult female ball about 4' long thats acking bothersome she's throwing her head side to side and upside down for no aparent reason. she does it for a secong then start balling up he entire body . then shell settle down for a while and do it again. temps and humitity are fine i just bought her 3-4 weeks ago and have gotten a good shed out of her and fed her a med. rat 6-7 days ago (fresh kill) in a tub with nothing other than her and the rat in it. is this strange behavior for ball pythons i've owned other snake in the past but its been a few years ive never seen anything like this before

is she a normal ball or some type of morph??? I know that some morphs that have the spider gene in them, spiders, bumble bees, ect. have been known for a similar behavior called the head spin or head wobble. But I am not sure for sure that this is what you are describing.

matt

she a normal ball she is breeding size is this type of breeding behavior in the last few weeks shes gone from very docile to very active when being handled i figured post shed then hunger or stress level would acount for that but come to think of its she never slowed down even after feeding

also there is a very good chance it is wild caught so maybe internal pericites. no evidence of mites

have you used a mite spray in her enclosure recently? i once had an incident where a snake acted exactly as if it had IBD immediately after... i removed it from the sprayed area and a few days later it was back to normal. it was a real scare though; its body spasming uncontrollably.

i sprayed 50 enclosures - just the one snake reacted that way. i assume i put it back in too soon and it breathed in some of the fumes. anyway it went back to being a healthy eating machine a week later.

no mites ill spay again tonight when i change her bedding. she keeps laying upside down from her head to about a foot down just laying on her back i wish i could get some pics up i need to resze them first though