Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My sons Ball Python is sick and doesn't seem to be getting any better.

The snake is about 1 years old. He's been very bloated. The store we bought it from suggested soaking him in a bucket of warm (not hot) water for about 10 minutes and then gently pushing towards the bottom of the snake to help relieve him of the liquids.

This greatly reduced the swelling the first time, but he was swollen as big in the morning after doing this. This doesn't work anymore and I hesitate to do this to the snake anymore.

Also recently since the snake has been sick, he's bit my son which has never happened before, and he's tried to bite me on a couple of occassions.

I apologize about my lack of knowledge and experience with this species but is there anything we can do for this little guy?

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks

Take it to a vet.
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www.strictlyballs.ca

It could be a upper respiratory infection but doubt it maybe parisites or could be constipated if it's this constipated you can give them mineral oil it can help the vet I use has done this before and it worked but try to get it to a vet it's alot better and less stressful on the animal before anyone says this isn't right my vet has been seeing reptiles for over 20 years hope this helps

Thanks for the input guys. He'd been like that for a couple weeks. He wouldn't eat although he'd look at it and lick the mouse.

He shed early this week and the swelling started to go away. On Sunday, the swelling was gone. We fed him a smaller mouse and he hit it right away. Seems to be doing much better. We're keeping a close eye on him and will get him to a vet if it flares back up again.