Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys. About a week ago my baby king snake threw up. Unknowingly i fed him again. Today, 4 days after feeding i found another throw up. It seemed more digested this time. Do i wait 10 days like people say? Thanks

at LEAST 12-14 days now, then only a TINY meal like I suggested before!...the whole while keeping the snake in the high 80's to 90F at belly surface to raise its metabolism to help fight the bacteria off and get its gut back in decent order.

This is not good for the snake at all, because now it has been poisoned twice in a row within only the past few days with big-time rotten bacteria. I would dose it with Flagyl at this point too, but you need to bring it into a vet for that unless you have some and know how to do it.

Anyway, unless you want the snake to die, please do exactly what is in my first sentence at the top. Otherwise, it is going to plummet downhill.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Yes of course i will wait the time you said and feed the smallest pinky i can find. Sorry about feeding. I didnt know what to do at that point. He looks like he has good fat reserves so he should be fine for 2 weeks right?

You might even consider just a pink head for the first meal but if you do that I would use paper towels for substrate so it won't ingest anything stuck to the wet stuff where the head is cut. As Doug stated, two regurgitations is twice as bad , even more so for a hatchling. Good luck and definitely wait the amount of timr so gut flora can replenish. Do you have any nutribac?

Joe

No nutriback. Not even sure what that is. He isnt a hatchling he is about 5 months

Yeah, with decent weight it could go an incredibly long time (months even) if it really had to, so that's not an issue at all here right now. You can also get a probiotic (such as NutriBac) online for only a few bucks that helps the snake's gut digest because it is composed of natural enzymes that help digest the meal so it is easier on the snake at this point. I can't remember the size of your snake, but you can even poke little tiny holes in it here and there to help the acids more readily leach into the prey item to make it easier to digest too.

Anyway, forget about feeding decent sized meals,..... you have to get its GUT back to normal working order and wait 12-14 days, then offer a NY meal(1/4 to 1/3rd the size it would normally eat) to make damn sure it won't get regurgitated this next time.

Remember, food is NOT the priority right now at all....high 80's to 90F so the snakes metabolism is raised....then a very tiny meal .....then after it poops another tiny meal for a few more times until you know the snake is out of the woods and can hold the small meals down succesfully.....and only THEN do you think of going up in size in very small increments until you are 100% confident the snake's gut is back on track and processing normally again.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

not NY meal...geeez!..LOL!!

Got taken out while editing the sentence......

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Okay. I will wait 2 weeks or so, and feed a pinky head or half pinky. The hot side is always 90 degrees, give or take a couple tenths of a degree. I think i may have fed too big a food item. I fed him fuzzies, and was following the munson feeding plan. I figured corns and kings were close enough. Maybe not! I believe he was about 25 grams at last weigh and about 15 inches, give or tale and about as wide around as a double a battery

He may be a bit smaller than a double a. Not exactly sure. The fuzzies were a bit big though

Yeah, that was the precisely the problem. That is the exact opposite of what you want to do after a snake regurges. As said earlier, nevermind feeding it any meals at all, much less big bulging meals that it cannot digest because of the acids and gut flora it gave up in the regurge episodes. You have to make it easy on the snakes stomach, not hard.

Also as Joecop mentioned, paper towels as a substrate also makes it very easy to notice the state of what it poops or regurges so you know exactly what's going on without it getting buried in substrate.

good luck with it.....and get some NutriBac from Kathy Love (cornutopia.com) for a few bucks. No pronlem trusting her to ship you a little bottle. Figure that you have plenty of time to wait for it to arrive too since you don't want to feed it anything for the next 12-14 days.......just keep it warm and well hydrated.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I wondered what a New York meal was!

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Kent

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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Yeah Doug, I once had a 4 month old pit gack twice in a two week period. Did not think he was going to make it. Waited 24 days before his next meal and started very small. Only fed him after seeing he had pooped for the next two months. He made it and was healthy. One more gack and I bet anything that would have been lights out for the little guy. I did give him nutribac after the second time, which I think helped his recovery. Regurgitation sucks and we can smell them a mile away!!!!!

Joe

Yep,...nothing worse for a snake than for it to keep regurgitating. Glad to hear you got the Pit back on track in time...

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I cannot remember where I got the advise from either Doug, might have been a post from you years ago!!! I must say my friend , you have saved many a snake with some spot on advise on these forums. Just felt compelled to mention that.

Joe

Yeah, I seem to vaguely recall that you had a problem with one a few years back. It is a good feeling to get personal emails from folks that said they got their snakes thriving again by following a few basic steps to the letter.

Fist things first and in the correct sequence is what does the trick as you know...

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

the off topic pic!
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Kent

Sorry to add something else. I think your best approach is to take your snake to a vet. If its flagel protozoas, then its easy to treat if the damage is not to far along.

If its not, then all the advice given here is not of any use.

Normally a protoza infection is stress induced. So something with its past husbandry was not suitable. A vet can help you with this.

Without seeing the snake in hand or knowing what caused the infection, all this stuff is just guessing. Do you want to gamble with your snakes life, based on a guess. Take it to a vet. Best of luck

Hi Frank,....yes, I addressed that to him in my earlier post just 4 days ago.

"As long as the snake uses the warm side and your probe is down on the enclosure's floor surface at 90.5 where the snake's belly make contact and not in the ambient air of the cage it should be fine. It's important to allow a few hides too. One on the warm and cool side so it doesn't have to choose security over temps, or vice versa.

But in any case, you had better make damn sure it uses that warm side if there is any hope at all of preventing another regurge if that is indeed what it was initially"
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

The most important part is, have a vet check and make sure what your treating for.

In all reality, you should not recomend a treatment, unless you know what your treating for.

Going by posts on a forum, makes what your recomending, a guess. I hope your right and I hope the OP has the experience to treat the snake. Cheers

Hope he can find a vet that knows reptiles if thats the case. Most in md won't even look at snakes. My buddy there was a vet so I was lucky. Having said that , Flagyl or Panacur has been given every single time I have taken a snake to the vets for a regurg problem. (three times over the years) It cured the problem every time. I guess there could be an impaction that could be causing the problem, but if not I would bet a visit to the vets will result in Flagyl and a 130-180 dollar vet bill. Of course a vet visit will probably be needed in the first place to get the Flagyl.

Joe

......precisely Joe..

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

I'm not suggesting going to a Vet is not a good thing but over the years my experiences have been mostly not very impressive.

I lose faith in their ability, even when they market themselves as a herp trained Vet and don't know what kind of snake I am presenting to them.

Generally if its been a regurge issue they do the basics of questioning your basic husbandry. ( good idea ) If you've got at least a few years under your belt and read you generally have a better idea of the basics then they do and since you just had to explain what kind of snake you have there, it's a little... Insulting and seems like a waste of time because IF you care, you've gone over all that yourself many times before the Vet visit.

Prior to this, you've probably gotten the " You're a Meanie " look from the overly animal friendly receptionist because your snake doesn't have a cute and cuddly pet name and she needs it for the computer file. Ok...

In a situation like the poster has presented I'd normally be told to go a week or so and try to feed again ( well yeah...) and then come back because we don't want to give such a small snake any meds because dosing is so difficult on such a small animal. A fecal if you can bring one, is a very large fee here and in my experience I've been told " it shows nothing " or "its too small a sample"

Now I go back to the receptionist that thinks I'm a turd because my snake doesn't have a name to pay the $140.00 bill And reschedule the next $140.00 visit for my $50.00 snake which I do care about but....

I don't generally have these issues. Husbandry is good and I quarantine zealously
But if it does I have found cranking up the hotspot, even more meticulous cleaning, low stress environment and waiting for the next REAL SMALL meal usually works fine. Snakes have immune systems like us that generally do a good job.
I realize there a good Vets out there that are hetpers too. Just not many here and I live near civilization.

Sorry, I meant.

There are good Vets out there that are also herpers...

Heres the point, you learned, as did Doug and others. You learned by doing.

The OP, has not, and has a real problem. A problem that is beyond their experience level. That is what a Vet is for.

You may be right and Doug may be right, or wrong. Then whose becomes responsible for the death of the snake?

Pretty much, if its a problem and it has to be asked about here, they really should take the snake to a vet(a good one) and then come here to learn how to prevent the problem.

This is a husbandry forum, not a vet medicine forum.

Speaking of that, why don't vets give advice over the internet? The main reason is, they cannot SEE the animal in question.

I like you, rarely take a reptile to a vet, but I have when needed. Particularly with wild caught imports. So far, that has worked well. Once I get the animals on point, keeping them that way is easy. Cheers