Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a wild caught Suboc, approx 24" long. She eats f/t just fine, but without fail throws up two or three days later.
Any suggestions?

1. How is your humidity? I have heard that subocs require a lower humidity and regurging is one symptom of a higher than recommended humidity for these snakes.

2. Have you had the snake checked by a qualified, experienced reptile vet, especially for internal parasites? If it is wild-caught, then it very well may have parasites that are causing the regurging.

3. What temps are you running? Do you have two appropriate sized hide boxes? Is this snake being kept separately from other snakes or are you housing more than one snake in his home?

4. What time schedule are you following for feeding/regurging? Do you wait the ten days to two weeks after regurging to try again? Are you handling this snake after he eats? If he is regurging, I would suggest that you wait to handle him at all until after this dangerous regurge cycle has been totally stopped. And then after that happens, then I would suggest that you only handle him 48 or more hours AFTER he has eaten.

5. Are the meals too large for him or too many mice at a time? I have also heard that sub-ocs like smaller meals than you might think from looking at their size.

Hope something helps in this list.
-----
sue

he mentioned the size of the food, but how much are you feeding? may want to try cutting down to one mouse @ a time if you're feeding more.
-----
The reason mainstream thought is thought of as a stream is because it's so shallow. -Unknown

i bet she's TOO warm. what is her dth? drop her to say 74* and lower at night and fast her 10 days. then offer her a smallish meal and see if she doesn't digest it. subocs become stressed by warm temps. hope this helps........

I agree with the other posters, but I particularly agree with the one who suggested that you check the humidity. This seems to be THE mistake that people new to subocs make, myself included. Make sure your cage is very well ventilated. If you have the snake in a plastic box of some kind, you can almost be sure that the humidity is too high in there. Also, check the ambient humidity in the room the snake is in, and not in just one spot as it seems that some rooms can be more humid in different spots.
Good Luck! Once you get that dude turned around, you're going to have a great snake!

Well, I'm feeding one f/t fuzzie per meal, my Baird's are smaller and eating a similar sized meal w/o a problem. Also, I live outside of Houston, humidity may very well be an issue. On the other hand, others keep them in this same enviroment.
I'll try the various suggestions you folks have given me, thanks for the input. I'll let you know in a couple weeks how it does. Just as an aside, do captive born tend to handle the humidity, etc. better than wild caught?

I also live in Houston. As long as the cage is well ventilated, everything should be fine. I've started cutting the tops out of rubbermaid boxes and screening them over, and that has been adequate.
I've read that adult wild caught subocs tend to have all kinds of difficulty in captivity, but that ones caught while still subadult will thrive.
Cheers!

I agree on the humidity issue. But also...Subocs, Baja rats (rosalie), and Boglerophis all seem to better on small meals.

The size sounds right (fuzzy). My blonde Subocs which are the same size eat one fuzzy every two weeks and do great.

Frank
-----
"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Hey Frank, how old are those blondes? Just wondering because I've noticed with my subocs that they don't eat more than once every two weeks or so until they get to be about 18 mos. to two years old. Then, I start to feed them once a week while still keeping the meals small, and they seem to like that.

Mine are at 13 months. My older ones ate a regular mouse once every two weeks or fuzzies every week. Sounds like we are on about the same page there.

However the rosalie has to continue with the seemingly tiny (fuzzy)meals. If those start upchucking, it's over. Just seems like a picky group of snakes.

Frank
-----
"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."