Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello all i have a sudden problem with a few of my hot snakes. my rhino and pygmy rattler are regurging for no aparrent reason.
the rhino has been doing it for about 2 months, and i have eased up the feeding regiment to 1 adult mouse every other week, the pygmy is at 1 pink/fuzz every other week, cage temps are around 80- 90 degs with a slight drop at night, could this be due to the change in the room temps due to the spring season, the rhino is c.b., but the pygmy is wild, any advise would be nice, tnkx in advance

They are probably regurging because it is WAY to hot for them. Rhinos need pretty cool temps - 79 to 82 F would be good. Temps in the 90's are inacceptable for bitis nasicornis. Pygmys are a temperate species and require temperatures that reflect this.

Could be a number of causes ranging from stress caused by inadequate housing/temperature ranges to pathogens including parasites, bacterial infection or even a virus. You need to apply diagnostic tools quickly to identify and treat the problem. I suggest a direct fecal smear as well as a float; you may have a flagellate problem. Even if your vet won't see the snakes themselves, he or she will see fresh fecal or regurge samples and this is an important part of diagnostics.

Also some research about the appropriate temperature ranges to keep these species in would be indicated.

I am in 100% agreement. Our wildlife center routinely takes fresh fecal samples from our venomous collection to our vet to do routine testing (this is an important tool in disease prevention and overall collection management). Although we rarely have regurg problems, when they do happen, once again, we bag them and get them checked out just to be on the safe side. Those temps sound far too warm for both animals. We generally don't allow our rhino viper cage to go above the low 80's (with a very small, localized basking area that reaches the mid 80's) and there are areas of the cage where the temps are in the low to mid 70's and these snakes will seek these areas out. Your pygmy rattler should have areas in its cage where it can cool below 80 deg F. You didn't provide much info on how you heat the cage, cage size, how long you have had the animals, etc. Regurg could be from heat stress or other factors as Tanith mentioned...only a qualified vet should diagnose.