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Abdominal Swelling

Posted By:

iashia

In Relation To:

Hurricane [0.0.1.NR.BP]

Last feeding time, Hurricane...

skipped her meal. She wasnt even interested. Its very abnormal for her to skip a meal, shes usually my garbage disposal when other snakes dont want to eat. So ive been keeping an eye on her. Now recently, in the last week or so, shes swelled up in her lower abdominal area and around her tail

She also hasnt defacated in a while. i had her swim for about ten minutes earlier today to see if that would make her poop, and a small urate came out, but thats it.


Points:	250
Topics:	Digestive , Disinfectants
Tags:	Ballpython
Species:	Pythons > Pythons > Python regius
Administrative:	Show/Hide

Member Comment

2/9/2010 9:35:05 PM

mojosreptiles

could she be preggers??

Author Comment

2/9/2010 9:38:16 PM

iashia

she hasnt been with a male where she could get pregnant, and im not even 100% sure its a female, becuse i never planned to breed her. i call her a female, because Shekinah, my other adult BP is definatly a male, and their tail length, width and anal spurs are nothing alike

Member Comment

2/9/2010 9:43:35 PM

masterfulpoopsie

its a ball python......it needs to poop.

Author Comment

2/9/2010 10:01:52 PM

iashia

if its impacted, it cant poop.

Assisted Answer

2/9/2010 11:06:34 PM

Sonja K. Reptiles

I would do additional soaks in luke warm water for longer than 10 minutes, and also bump her cage temp. up a couple degrees to see if that helps.

Author Comment

2/9/2010 11:10:35 PM

iashia

for sure. tonights feeding night too, so if she eats, thats a good sign

Accepted Answer

2/9/2010 11:58:23 PM

danicat83

I had a rescued snake (redtail boa) that was often constipated. I noticed that not only soaking in warm water and gently massaging the area helped but upping the temps and cage humidity seemed to produce a good poop faster. Good luck, hopefully snakie is just stopped up a bit and it resolves quickly.

Assisted Answer

2/10/2010 1:49:19 AM

shellboa

If it is female it can still ovulate even if it hasn't mated. The follicles just get reabsorbed. When you push around the lower area is it really firm or still sort of squishy? if its firm then it surely needs to poop and you really need to soak longer or take sterner measures to hydrate it. If its squishy definetly bump the temp a couple and watch, make sure there is always water and don't wait to long for it to poop before you consult a vet.

Author Comment

2/10/2010 2:53:44 AM

iashia

its hard, and im pretty sure shes constipated. shes been soaking for about 20 minutes now, and i plan for another hour or so. other than having fresh water available, how would i make her intake more water? should i thaw her rats in water and have them soaked when i feed her?

Author Comment

2/10/2010 2:54:55 AM

iashia

she also refused food when i tried tonight

Member Comment

2/10/2010 1:01:43 PM

Katie M

she might need to wait till after her shed to poop

Author Comment

2/10/2010 1:11:19 PM

iashia

(that yellow beauty in your hand looks pissed and just too adorable!) i was thinking that last night. ill continue to soak her, though, because it will help her shed if nothing else

Member Comment

2/10/2010 2:04:26 PM

Katie M

thanks ;) Wednesday has a ton of pictures taken of her, so I guess she was mad at the flashy thing always in her face ;)

that said, I found MANY of my snakes hold their poo till their shed is off. Soaking certainly won't hurt ;)

Author Comment

2/10/2010 4:58:33 PM

iashia

yea, im still tracking down a exotics vet tho. i want to have one on speed dial if something goes wrong.

a bit off topic, and i might just start another question about it. i had a baby ball shipped to me feeding on live, and i cant get her to switch over. any methods or tricks that you have found that work?

Assisted Answer

2/10/2010 5:08:25 PM

Allysen

An exotic vet it the best idea. And keep up the soaks, and keep an eye on her, like everyone else said. It happens every now and again with one of my boas.

As for getting babies onto f/t, I switch my babies, and even adults with a mixture of bedding from mice and rats. I wait an hour or two, make sure they're hunting, make sure the f/t is HOT, as in blow-dried for a few minutes, and then offer with wiggling, sometimes dragging and gentle dancing. It's worked for all but one of my ball pythons! Good luck!

Author Comment

2/10/2010 5:12:31 PM

iashia

ill try that tonite. i got her to eat a live one last week, but it took her near an hour just to take interest in it and kill it

Assisted Answer

2/10/2010 8:11:56 PM

aaron

how long is a "while"?

i checked her tracking but its empty.

for additional hydration, you can always inject the prey with water. i had a couple of boys who went through bad sheds and weren't drinking much, so I started injecting the mice with about 10ml water... seemed to help

switching to F/T should be a new Q. :)

Author Comment

2/11/2010 11:22:50 AM

iashia

she pooped sometime last night, no waste, all bone material. i read about someone else having a constipation problem with their bp and when it DID come out it was all urates too. as for bumping up water intake, it sounds odd, but i do have a few syringes laying around so ill start doing that. you can never have too much water in your system.

ill start the new question for the f/t thanks guys =)

Author Comment

2/11/2010 11:23:43 AM

iashia

OH and i found a nearby exotic vet after some frantic searching, so on feb 25th, everyone is getting checked out

Author Comment

2/17/2010 12:23:49 PM

iashia

oh, for those of you wondering why this situation is still going, i looked at the wrong snake *yahwehshekinah* who had just pooed and thought it was hurricane. hurricane still has a blockage, though she did pass some stool on the 16th

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