Reptile & Amphibian Forums

okay, as you all have seen, we just recently purchased a '10 lavender albino retic. we got him home and put him in a 55gal tank in our living room, and got him out everyday and he never acted crazy or anything, he was awesome... well after the first week we noticed signs of RI, so we put him in a tote in the snake room. would get him out, he would be fine, and then last week we tried to feed him a live rat because we have been unable to transfer him to f/t yet. and the rat covered him with the mulch, and scratched him up pretty good. well since then, he has went bonkers... you touch him with the hook to get him out and he jets out of the tote like a bat out of hell, and is GONE... well once you get him to calm down and you get pick him up with the hook hes okay, then poops and pees all over you. well just a minuet ago, i noticed he dumped his water and i got him out and he was okay, and i held him and commenced to clean his tote, and then he out of no where went crazy again and took off, and i grabbed the hook to get ahold of him and he peed all over me again and head butted me twice.
HELP PLEASE!!!?!
any tips???

The snake is stressed out-probably with that rat encounter. Usually a retic will take a warm, frozen thawed rodent wiggled off tongs. At least try a fresh, pre-killed rat. Try to get him on F/T as soon as possible even if you have to let him get hungry for a while.

The urination/defication is a natural defense mechanism. I would put him in a low traffic, quit area for a few weeks and start limited, slow, gentle handling after that. Bill
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...three years ago it was just another snake cult...
The Retic is King.
Anacondas-the other Dark Side.
Afrocks-the dark side of the Dark Side.

My thoughts:
1.If this snake has developed RI, stop handling the snake. Provide hide spot and increase temps and monitor the recovery. If things dont get better in a week consider a herp vet visit.
2. Discontinue feeding until snake exhibits a strong feeding response i.e. becomes very active in enclosure and follows your movement. I would try smaller than usual prey. If the snake shows no interest in the prey, remove immediately. You can also try freshly killed prey and leave the snake alone with it.
Keep us posted
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1.0 Albino American alligator, "Smoke"
1.1 American alligator,"Al Bite Ya & Molly"
1.1 Purple Albino Reticulated Pythons, "Gumbo & Abita"
0.1 Eastern Gaboon Viper, "Gabbie" Recently passed away at 24 years old
Help me find this snake!

The previous two posts offered excellent advice and I only would like to add to them. Assuming that temps in the original enclosure were satisfactory (upper 70's to upper 80's), the number one cause of respiratory issues with tropical pythons is low humidity. This is especially true for larger enclosures where adequate heat very easily causes sub-optimal humidity. I believe the RI symptoms you are seeing may very well be remedied by an increase in ambient humidity if the condition has not progressed too far.

Kelly

Soo as far as the RI condition, we baked it out of him I guess, he's in our snake room and it says 80' to 85' And is alot better...and he refused a f/t today, so I guess we will hold off a few weeks, and we haven't handled him since we moved him to the back room. Thanks for all the advice and ill let y'all know How it goes and as soon as he eats!

kelly you replyed to a post of mine on the burm fourm. the pics of my snake shedding and asked about my fogger, and this is the exact reason for the fogger is because my snake was looking like it had a ri, proper temps and some extra humidity cleared it up in a couple weeks. i think its commenly confused with ri's and people should be mindfull of their humidity during the dry winter months