Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, I finally got the male to eat, he took a sm-med mouse. The next day he regurged it, at this point making him extremely thin. I cleaned the cage, and got him with Metronidazole, a dewormer. That made him perk up, but now he has no interest whatsoever in eating, AT ALL. He is not emaciated. Hes still tongue flicking and striking, but very very thin, and looks to be dehydrated, even though he can stay in the water all day.

Any help is appreciated

thanks
chris

Hi Chris,

well, best you take him to a vet then. It's allways difficult to tell someone what to do without seeing the animal.

Was the mouse prekilled, live or frozen?

And don't try feeding him for a couple of days after he regurged! You know the digesting system acid has to get to a lower level again and some biological things... (can't explane in english) but the python would be stressed out if fed now! Acutally the snake will refuse any food on his own for a couple of days or even weeks.

good luck,

Wulf
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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

I have given him a few days, he regurged last saturday evening. I plan to take him to a vet, being that I work for one. However, my boss is away this weekend, and I wont be able to do anything until monday. Ive been considering some SQ fluids, but Ill wait and have that confirmed on monday.

the mouse was a fully thawed frozen.

Hi Chris,

well that might have been the problem.
If you buy frozen prey you'll have to trust the (re-)seller that everything is ok with it. I've heard of snake deaths because the frozen baby mice were thwaned bevor and therefore the milk they had in their stomach began to rot so that this acutally was a bacteria bomb.
I less dramatical thing would be if the mouce was still frozen inside or something like that.

Hard to tell what caused the throw up, it could as well be the result of parasites or so. Best would be to take the python to the vet.

Cheers,
Wulf
-----
http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

I breed rats, it however was a mouse and not one of my frozens. Do you think maybe I should stick to f/k? Or maybe this was just a freak thing IF the mouse even had anything to do with it.

After the Metronidazole treatment, he seemed to perk up and attempt to kill me again.

I got the female eating great now.

HOW can i post pics here????

thanks
chris

Hi Chris,

well, perhaps the mouse could have been the reason, but I'm not really sure. It could be very well that your wlp has endo-parasites or something. Get some poop for analysis.
I feed all my animals with live prey that I breed so I know they are healthy at any time. I've never had any problems with it though.

It might take time untill he feeds again especially after that
Metronidazole treatment. Just watch out that he drinks enough. If you spray him with luke warm water and the drops just run down the skin he's not dehydrated.
My wlps would have killed my too if I had given them that medicine

Cheers,
Wulf

btw.: Posting pics like that: *img* */img* (replace the "*" with "[" and "]" ! )

Chris wrote:

I breed rats, it however was a mouse and not one of my frozens. Do you think maybe I should stick to f/k? Or maybe this was just a freak thing IF the mouse even had anything to do with it.

After the Metronidazole treatment, he seemed to perk up and attempt to kill me again.

I got the female eating great now.

HOW can i post pics here????

I had a similar experience with Rosy Boas and I found that they seemed to have a problem digesting the fur on a mouse. I would recommend that you try reducing the size of the mouse that you are offering both to reduce the stress of a larger meal on the snake and also to give it a hairless baby mouse. A little "peach fuzz" on the mouse is ok but the smaller and more hairlss it's next meal is the more likely it will keep it down.

As a side note I have discovered that my rosies will keep down a fairly large "pinky" rat very happily where the same size furred mouse is often regurgitated!

Thanks,

yeah, I typically prefer rats, being that I have somewhere around 75 breeders of them....

These guys are very picky though, Itll take some work to get them on rats. The female however is downing whole mice, and he used to be larger than her.

He is very active, I bent over the cage to take a look at the temperature strip, and he managed to tag my forehead, so he obviously still has the spirit to live.