Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My Ball just ate. about two hours the mouse was back out of the mouth but she still had the mouse clamped by the head and its been like that for an hour. Anyone know whats wrong?

I'm not sure why it's clamping the mouse still. Probably really tired from regurgitating.

But here is some info for the after care of your snake....

Do not feed, touch, get into the cage, for any reason for 10-14 days (the bare min. is 10 days). The stomache is very delicate right now and feeding your snake will only make him/her regurge again.

Check your temps (on the floor, not with a sticky temp thing, that sticks on the side of the tank) but with an indoor out door(with probe) thermometer you can get at wal-mart and just about any hard ware stores...put the probe on the hot side (on the inside) over the UTH. If you don't have a UTH get one, BP's need belly heat to digest their food. Make sure the heat does not go over 95 degress and not below 90. The cool side (room temp) should be about 80-85 (though no less than 75) degree's....

Put the cage in an extreme low traffic area, and make sure s/he has a nice BIG bowl of water.
When a snake regurges there is a chance of dehydration. so make sure that the snake is drinking. If the bowl is big enough for your snake to soak in then you shouldn't have to change the water for 1 week.

After the 10-14 days has passed try feeding something smaller than you fed him this time.
Then leave alone till next feeding. If he does not regurge again, then great. DO NOT handle or take out of the low traffic area until he has ate without regurging atleast 4 times! Spot clean as nesecary only after he has successfully ate atleast 1 time.

Oh sorry for missing this, but put him on news print or white paper towel until he stops regurging....

Another thing that might make the snake regurge....

Being an over all to hot,
Internal parasites.
The prey item being to large.

If he regurges again, put the regurge in a plastic baggie and get to the vet as soon as you can. with baggie and snake.....

I hope this helped...
-----
1.1 Ball Python, 0.1 motley amel corn

whats the point of putting the ABC'ed mouse in the bag? what can the vet get from it, other than the horrible stench?

if you can't get a fecal right away the regurge may show if there is a internal parasite problem, or a bacterial problem.
-----
1.1 Ball Python, 0.1 motley amel corn

1) Other causes of regurgitation can relate to anatomical abnormalities such as growths or strictures due to underlying disease processes or injury to the esophagus.
2)sometimes examination of the regurged item can give clues to how long the food item was kept down, ie the degree of digestion. Food items may be held down for fairly widely varying lengths of time, ie early bacterial gastritis vs. Cryptosporidiosis.

In this case, it sounds more like some kind of anatomical problem, but there's not much to go on. If this snake eventually was able to swallow and keep down the meal, then great. If not, waiting about a week and trying a smaller food item would be the proper plan. Obviously having it examined by someone very experienced with BP's would be nice. Scott J. Michaels DVM