Fat or something wrong?

My snow female, has had this bulge near her vent and her tail tapers very abruptly. The pics will explain better. She's a 2004. I have a male, that I bought at the same time, I'm assuming he is her sibling... his tail looks very normal.

I'm curious if she is "fat", if it is perhaps a deformity, or ???? And what to do about it.

She weighs 181.5grams. She is fed every 2 weeks, eating 3 mouse hoppers or a rat pup/hopper.

TIA

by the looks of it it does look over weightcompare to all the other snakes i've seen. i don't think its your feeding pattern . even hough i've been told to feed weekly from 1-2 of what ever it eats one being enogh and two meaning it a growing boy/girl. i would sugest looking at other snake and you should decide

Has anyone ever thought this snake is eating in survival mode? Like I know when some teen girls who are careless will literally starve themselves but everytime they eat it turns to fat? I know I've had this happen to me once. So maybe try feeding 1 prey item big enough for it once a week and keep it like that. The snake is probably on Survival mode and everything it eats goes straight to its fat supplies. Just my 2 cents. Just thought I'd say something. Don't know if it'll help.

yes i've herd of it as feeding frenzy she is starved for two weeks and then she eats like crazy i bet if you just try fedding it weekly for a month only one prey the maybe two after the month

Let's not lose sight of the fact that many people feed their snakes 1 hopper a week. So feeding 3 every two weeks is probably far from starving her. And she isn't being starved and then going on a feeding frenzy. She is simply eating what is offered.
If she can handle three hoppers at one feeding (and being 180 grams), then it is time to move up to the next size. Whether you should be feeding every 7-10 days or once every two weeks isn't my decision. If it were me I would feed one appropriately sized meal once every 7-10 days.

All that being said, when was the last time she pooped? Could it be that she is backed up or has some sort of blockage? When some of mine haven't yet gone after eating they tend to look "swollen" just above the vent. I haven't seen anything quite as extreme as in these pictures, but I haven't ever fed one of my snakes 3 hoppers at one time.

zwyatt said:

All that being said, when was the last time she pooped? Could it be that she is backed up or has some sort of blockage? When some of mine haven't yet gone after eating they tend to look "swollen" just above the vent.

Click to expand...

I was thinking this when I first saw these pics, and is it me or the vent kindof ... I dunno, not sticking out as such, but almost.. protruding? I can't really describe lol I can see clearest on the forth pic..

Thanks for the responses. I assure you, it is not how I feed that is making her this way. Any of my snakes that are 1yr + get fed 1 x every 10-14 days, of a fairly good sized meal, and she is the only one with this problem. In addition, she has been like this since I recieved her.

Anyways, I think we figured out what is wrong on a different board. Some excerpts:

" It's a heavy snake and the back end is usually where the fat settles
In addition it might have crossed scutes. Show a belly pic.
Are there aberrant crossed scales just before the vent? This condition is present now in many serpents, and crossed or aberrant scutes are a reflection of aberrant or extra ribs and this makes bumps or wider than normal areas.
The condition has no negative effect but is often passed to young which is why it's now seen commonly in species that are produced in mass"

I posted another pic showing the belly and:

" Yeah, just what I thought... those belly scales near the vent are aberrant and cleft and that is why she is looking a little wide and bumpy in the back end.
Corns should normally have a divided vent plate and divided caudal scutes but your specimen has some divided and partial belly scales anterior to the anal plate.
As you proposed, it's a deformity, but not an uncommon one."

She has been retired to my pet only rack She's a sweetie. But I am not promoting deformities.

For the record She is on newspaper and aspen, and regularly soils it