Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A few days ago I fed all of my Kenyans. While feeding them I noticed that my female who gave birth recently had a bit of old skin on her still, so I dug her out tonight to check on her. I was holding my anery Kenyan from the same tank too, and when I put the anery back, some reddish-brown liquid sort of squirted out of the other snake's mouth. Now I've been working with snakes (both at home and at work) for about 5 years, so I've dealt with plenty of regurges before, and this was like nothing I've ever experienced.

1. She ate an appropriately-sized meal a few days ago, is not stressed out from handling, and I wasn't treating her roughly in any way. I don't know why she regurged/vomited.

2. I can't even begin to accurately describe how extraordinarily foul-smelling this liquid was... At least 100x worse than any regurge I've experienced before. I'm the kind of person who can stand over a rotting sea lion carcass to examine the maggots writhing around in it, but after smelling what just happened, I feel like I'm going to regurge something. This happened in my bedroom where I keep these snakes, and even after opening the window and saturating the floor in Resolve I still don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep in there.

Has this ever happened to anyone before? Should I keep a closer eye on this snake in case any health problems develop? I know how to deal with snakes that have "normal" regurges, but I just want to see if this was something unusual. Thanks in advance for any help.
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- Natalie
(San Francisco Bay Area)

There is no such thing as a "normal" regurge. If a regurge happens something is wrong. Environment, handling, parasites....something. I've kept reptiles for about 13 years now and its been a rare occurance even with WC animals.

I'd take the snake to a vet and get it checked out. Once an animal is regurging it usually takes some work to fix the situation.

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Travis Rose
Lazy S Snake Ranch
3.7 Kenyan sand boas (various morphs)
1.2 Indian sand boas
0.3 Dogs
0.1 Cat
X.X Fish
0.1 Very understanding wife
2.0 Future Snake Lovers

That's what's strange about the situation, is that there's nothing wrong with the snake. She's a bit skinny from having 16 babies a few weeks ago, but that's it. I've been doing some thinking about the situation, and it seems that in all likelihood she just drank a bunch of water right before I held her. I've read on here water can "spill" out of snakes' mouths if they drink a lot and then are handled after, and that sounds a lot like what happened last night, only made infinitely more disgusting because she had eaten recently.

The snake didn't actually regurgitate... The food is still inside of her, it was just the watery liquid that came out (about a teaspoon). Regardless, I'll still be keeping a close eye on her to make sure she doesn't actually regurgitate the rat, which has never been a problem with her or any of my sand boas.
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- Natalie
(San Francisco Bay Area)

I've had the water thing happen once to me. Definately weired.

I've also had one snake do a defensive regurge on me. I caught a wild water snake that had just eaten a frog. Interesting experience. Take care!
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Travis Rose
Lazy S Snake Ranch
3.7 Kenyan sand boas (various morphs)
1.2 Indian sand boas
0.3 Dogs
0.1 Cat
X.X Fish
0.1 Very understanding wife
2.0 Future Snake Lovers

A number of years ago, I had a female Eryx conicus who was ovulating. I wanted a photo of her going through this and when I picked her up, a clear viscous fluid dripped out of her mouth and onto my arm. I figured she had just had some water and I had forced some out of her by handling her even though I was being extraordinarily gentle.

Then I smelled that fluid and I have to agree - it wasn't a pleasant odor at all.

I never had it happen again and she lived and bred for years thereafter.

I have always suspected it was simply reflux of some of her gastric juice. Maybe hers was clear because she hadn't eaten recently?

Whatever it was, it wasn't indicative of any sort of health problem and it never happened again.

Chris
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas