Concerned about regurg

My little sunglow, Venkman, regurged sometime today (Wednesday). He was fed Friday night, 2 pinkies (frozen, thawed), so it's been 4 full days since the feeding (Sat - Tues). The regurge has the appearance of a single mostly undigested pinkie, black marks on it (especially near/around the slits in it's back), along with a mostly digested pinkie (very small, hardly anything left). He's been doing 2 pinkies per feeding for a while now without any problems (2 months?). He's fed every 5 to 7 days --- when he's out prowling around for a few days, we take that as a sign that he's hungry.

I've read the regurg faq, and know not to handle him, feed him a much smaller meal only after 10 days from now, etc., so I'm pretty sure I know what to do about it. My issue is trying to determine a cause.

After his "brother" died (similar regurge, though his started a week after we got him; we worked with Don @ SMR, went through the treatment, he was eating fine, didn't regurge the smaller meals, graduated to full pinkies, but never seemed to want to drink --- so we figure renal failure took him before we understood what was happening). We double-checked the tank temps -- they were too high, so we built a rheostat.

Current tank temps are 79 - 80 on the cool side, and 85 inside the warm side hide. Venkman pooped about 2 days ago ... a normal poop by all appearances (though my young ones were grossed out that he pooped on top of one of the hides).

I'm looking for ideas on what could have caused this. I've had him about 4 or 5 months now, and he's growing fine, and hasn't shown any signs of problems. He's an '04, 19" long (measuring his last shed from a week or two ago). We did have a birthday party in the house on Sunday for my two youngest kids --- do you think that having all those kids running around might have bothered him to the extent that he would have regurged? It was a "snake party" (http://www.snakeshow.com), so we also had a number of other snakes in the house --- at the other end of the house.


Thanks!

john

It's very unusual to have a snake regurge so long after feeding unless the temps are too low (which yours don't). However, from your description, it does sound like a classic regurge. I'm assuming it smelled a lot? Your feeding schedule sounds right for his size. I don't go to 7 days until they're on fuzzies. I have no idea why this happened, but seeing as your other snake had something going on before he died, you might want to check with a vet and make sure he doesn't have something else like parasites or something.

Just a thought is it time for him to shed? I'm only asking because I had my little anery stripe regurge 3 days after eating and shed 2 days later. I hadn't changed anything in his set up and he's back eating fine again so I'm attributing it to the fact that he shed (which may or may not be true). I don't know why he did but it's just a thought.

~Katie

He shed just 2 weeks ago or so; he's definitely not due to shed.

I'm thinking that it was all the commotion over the weekend --- his tank is in the family room, and there was a LOT going on on Sunday.

j

hmmmm... I have had a snake just randomly regurge. It turned out that he didn't like his home. I fed him 10 days later (in the same cage) and he regurged again. So, once we got bigger and better cageds, I moved him into there and he has been eating like normal. It wasn't like his home was too small (the same size as the new one). Try that.

Tough to imagine; he's in a 30-gallon now.

The good thing is that he was out & about yesterday, about 9:30 pm, crawling all over his "tree" and running along the ground. I walked up to him as he was taking a drink (at least, when I walked up, I didn't notice him at first, but he noticed me, raising his head from the water to stare at me).

I'm really hoping it was just all the distrubance over the weekend. I'll wait the 10 days (Saturday next week) and then give him a single pinkie.


j

It still could be the commotion, or it could be for no reason that anyone can figure out. My oldest aztec okeetee female regurged when I first got her, but she's never done it since, and I have no reason why she did then. It's been more than a year since she did that.

Ate one .... regurged the second

Well, Venkman did well with a tiny pinky a week ago. In fact, after he ate, he scooted around on his branch as if he hadn't eaten (it was a pretty small pinky compared to the two he's used to eating). I waited a week, and then gave him a pinky the size he was used to --- but only one --- and he regurged it the next day.

After that, I'm sticking to the regurge feeding schedule --- half a pinky, once a week, for 3 weeks, and then a slow build up to the old schedule. No handling for a while.

Do you think having his home near the tv/stereo could be a factor?

j

You may want to try using Nutribac; it's available from Kathy Love at www.cornutopia.com. I have a late 03 who has had problems with regurg in the past, and Nutribac, I believe, has helped. Meals are staying down and poop looks much healthier. Before, her poops were more like, for the lack of a better term, "wet farts" while her last one was more like the size of the meal she ate.

Where else but on this website can you talk about admiring snake poop! :laugh:

From what I understand, even if the Nutribac dosen't help, it can't hurt since it contains healthy snake gut bacteria.
Good luck, I hope your snake pulls through ok.

I was going to suggest the same thing! Kathy really thinks it makes a difference in snakes with regurge problems. Really stick to the schedule of smaller than normal feedings for at least 3 weeks. You don't want to start a regurge trend in your snake. Double check your temps too.