Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here you go Brad, I know you always like seeing deppei. My 08 female is coming along nicely. She looks very similar to your female. She's about 3' long know.

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Matt Kauffman

Thanks Matt, beautiful classic deppei. Is she a good feeder? How's her temperment?

My little '08 girl, and I do mean little, is still the smallest snake in my collection at about 22 inches and only 86 grams! BUT, she finally took two meals in a row, albeit 12 days apart...maybe she's finally on her way...but I've thought that many times before.

My next smallest snake is '09 lineaticollis at 110 grams! Funny that you'd think that would be beating out my '09 pines.

On the other hand, my biggest snake my '07 P. d. deppei male at just over 6 feet at a whopping 2700 grams! (over 6 pounds).
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

She is perfect in every way. She's a voracious feeder and is very handlable. She just curls around your hand and hangs out. She did, however, regurge a couple times when she was a hatchling. Thats why she's a bit smaller than my male. She's prettier though. I can't wait to see how she eventually turns out. I hope yours comes out of her feeding slump. She should eventually, I've had many snakes that were slow starters, sometimes taking as long as a year to get in gear.
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Matt Kauffman

...so, just when I thought it was out of the woods, I check in on her (no handling) ~56 hours post last meal and a few minutes later she gurges the whole thing, 5 very small fuzzies all stuck together in one mass and not at all well digested for that amount of time. DRAT!!!

This was 13 days after her last meal of the same size. Her temps are low to high 80s but it's always seemed like she digests very slowly as the bollus disappears very gradually. This seems the case also for my little lineaticollis which gurged recently also and has the same nervous temperment.

This snake has caused me so much frustration but she has such potential for high yellow P. d. d....now I fear she's not gonna make it...but she looks and acts very healthy.

...just like to follow-up on these things cause to me that kind of information from other keepers is always valuable.

Not so cheerfully,
Brad
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

Very sorry to here that. Maybe your just going to have to stick to one or two fuzzie's per feeding for a while. When my deppei were very small I never fed them more than one fuzzie, hoppper, or mouse, and I still don't. They both eat full sized mice now, but I only give them one per feeding and they're growing fine.
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Matt Kauffman

Yeah, maybe I blew it...just didn't seem like too much...hopefully she'll make a come back and from now on, tiny meals. Like I said, my BIG male has been extremely hearty from day one and has never refused except just before going blue. Guess the mystery is just part of the game.
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

I have a Kingsville/Crumbly cross that started regurging if I gave it anything bigger than a pinky, so that's all I gave it for the last half of it's second year. It had decent weight, so I hibernated it, and the next year I gave 2 meals of pinks, then a fuzzy, then a hopper, and it's been fine ever since. It sucks it is so far behind on growth now)(parents were 7' /-), but it came out of it eventually - it just took alot of patience.

n/p
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

I got to thinking about whether or not there was an easy way to decide precisely whether a meal is "too big" for an individual snake (or not), and looking at my records on an 09 P.d.jani, I think there might be. I'm probably trying to reinvent the wheel here, but I thought I'd share anyway

It looks like the ratio of food weight to snake weight is more or less constant - at least for my few months of data on a single snake (anyone else have similar records?)

Here's most of what I have on her weight (grams) just prior to feeding, meal size, followed by their ratio (snake/food):

snake(g) food(g) ratio
24.46 -- 1.43 -- 0.0585
24.56 -- 1.41 -- 0.0574
24.69 -- 1.37 -- 0.0555
25.24 -- 3.45 -- 0.1370
25.88 -- 4.82 -- 0.1860
26.97 -- 4.10 -- 0.1520
28.40 -- 2.99 -- 0.1050
28.40 -- 4.40 -- 0.1550
30.73 -- 4.18 -- 0.1360
30.95 -- 5.19 -- 0.1680
32.63 -- 4.50 -- 0.1380
33.80 -- 3.55 -- 0.1050
34.14 -- 6.08 -- 0.1780
37.43 -- 5.48 -- 0.1460
39.29 -- 6.78 -- 0.1730
41.74 -- 0.00 -- 0.0000

... sorry 'bout that ...

41.74 -- 0.00 -- 0.0000 (refused prior to shedding)
42.88 -- 3.59 -- 0.0837
43.77 -- 4.53 -- 0.1030
48.27 -- 5.60 -- 0.1160
48.38 -- 8.12 -- 0.1680

Not that anyone should take these ratios as optimal, but it looks like at least for this individual, she's fine with meals that are up to near 18% of her body weight.

So 5 small fuzzies probably weigh in around 3.5-4.5g each? So for an 86g snake about 17-23g of mouse, giving a ratio of 19% to 26%.

It's possible this ratio isn't really constant, and gets bigger for larger snakes, in which case a 5 fuzzy meal might be reasonably sized.

In any case, hopefully she comes around and starts holding down meals!

Take care,
Paul

So, is that last record your current weight for the '09 jani?
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

Yup, as of her last feeding.

...I weighed 5 randomly selected fuzzies (close as I can guess) and they came out to 19.5gms.

So 19.5/86 = .22 or 22% Definitely on the high side relative to yours. Thanks for the help with that...nice to apply some hard data.
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

Paul, that is AWESOME!!! Triple Gold Star...so happens I just bought a set of spring scales and will soon be adding a food weight entry on my husbandry tracking application...in fact, I'll do that today. Since seeing some similar data a while back on CBF (was that yours?) charting grams consumed and growth I've been wanting to do that, at least for some snakes. Unfortunately I don't have any real neonates to initiate but should still be interesting.

I'll weigh the food today or tomorrow to see if that last meal was in range and follow-up. Won't be feeding her again though for at least a week from now.

Cheers,
Brad
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

monklet, this really does suck, truly bummmer! since i've noticed that somehow it hasn't been mentioned yet, most mexican pines are actually a montane species & do not tolerate temps in the 80's very well. they do thrive beautifully however within normal ambient room temps. perhaps your's are a bit too warm? sincerely hope this helps & you can save them.........

Thanks Dan, I'm very aware the deppei snakes of cooler temps but she's bee at those temps for a long time and this is the only gurge since her first month or so when she was probably freaked cause I had to get some stuck shed off her tail.

Do you think that temps toward the high side would slow digestion? As I mention, her bollus's seem to diminish very gradually. I was thinking if anything she's too cold.

So, from know on, ambient room temps only 69-77F...how's that sound?
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

i haven't kept jani or vertebrilis in a long time but i do seem to remember them not digesting wholly if uncomfortable. i did get one jani pair to adulthood but overall i stopped working w/ the species for the very reason[s] you describe here. best of luck getting her back on track, these guys can be a real pia once derailed.....

Yep, so it seems. We'll see.
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack

Hey Brad,

The post on CBF you mentioned wasn't mine. It sounds like they had similar interests in keep track of how much mouse got turned into snake.

Another thought: perhaps that original regurgitation was a symptom of something else, and not the cause of her current problems? Does anyone know if a good reptile vet might be able to diagnose any digestive system or other problems that could cause regurgitation??

-Paul

Always good thinking not to get stuck with one hypothesis but in this case it I will guess that it was a combo of an uncomfortably large meal and her suffering a stress reaction to my opening up her box to check in...just as we all know, snakes stress more sometimes than others. She still seems quite healthy and active but definitely not hyper. I'm not too worried yet.

Thanks for all the ideas. I'll followup on next feeding in a few days.
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Have a nice day

Website: SerpenTrack