The Poop Thread

Snake has done that before, I assumed it was due to constipation, I haven't seen any poop around the viv for a week or so, which doesn't mean much because Snake has taken to the lovely habbit of burrowing and then pooping on the floor rather than the substrate.

Anyway, where its been a while since I've seen Snake poop, I assumed this was just constipation and the small clumps were just remnants of different meals.

Her last one was weird, but this one is a bit more normal... but, is that grey-pink part (which came out last) a bit of undigested stuff? That's not abnormal, right? Sorry it's on weird granite pattern linoleum :P

I feel weird taking pictures and uploading pictures of poop!

I would say with 90% certainty that's something undigested. After looking around google for a bit the most common culprits of that are

a: Not warm enough, check the temp your heat mat is getting to, and check both the hot and cold side. I've noticed that where I have the viv one end stays nice and warm, while the other end drops as low as 10'c. Luckily the snake is in a breeding box for now since its only tiny. When I move it to the full viv I plan on having heat mats at both ends (small one at the cold end to keep it near 17. Big one at hot end aiming for around 30)

b: Upper respieratory infection. But that can come on as a symptom of a, so that's the most likely culprit.

Hmm, I moved her to her 20 long a bit over a month ago, and she's slowly getting larger and larger meals. She has had her first fuzzy, but I'm also trying to use up some jumbo pinkies, so oftentimes I've been giving her two of those- combined equivalent weight of a fuzzy.

She's been fine up until now and, temperature-wise, I haven't changed anything so I'm a bit stumped. I'll have to go in and re-check things, I guess. See how the heat mat is performing. Maybe I should put my smaller heat mat on the "cool side" like you're going to do.

I haven't been able to find much info while internet searching. So, the only normal undigested bits to have would be fur or bone?

I see poops like that from time to time. I wouldn't worry about it.

Thanks Nanci, I feel better now

OK, here I was feeling better and now another poop incident....

I fed her about two days ago (a single, regular fuzzy which she ate backwards) and this morning I woke up to find what looked like a normal poop in the aspen on one side of her tank and a shrunken, half-digested but still recognizable mouse head on the other. I can only assume the head came out the back end... this is only her 2nd fuzzy and was by far the biggest meal she's ever had (she's about 7 months old). I had even put a couple slits in the gut of the mouse before feeding and squeezed the skull a little to break it up a bit...

Is there something wrong or is she just adjusting to the larger sized food item?

It would be very helpful to have pictures.

I feel stupid for having done this, but I cleaned up the poop and tossed out the mouse head remains... She pooped again tonight when I handled her, and it looked like more undigested stuff. There was more liquid, but I sopped some of it up before I thought to take a picture first.

She seemed to be acting normally. Although, before this pictured poop happened, I noticed that her cloaca "puckered" out like she was going to poop, but then she didn't, and there was a tiny bead of clear liquid that formed on her vent. Like she had strained but didn't get anything out...?

She's out and about tonight like she might be hungry. It's only been a little over 72 hours since she at that fuzzy.I'm really worried. I wish I knew what was going on.

If she isn't digesting the fuzzies at the moment lower her down to pinkies again for a little while and see if it still happens. You may want to keep her on larger pinkies for a little while longer if that's the case.

Also if you thought she might be straining a little, try giving her a bath, just fill a tuppaware pot with a little bit of water, let it get to room temperature, and then give her a swim, see if that helps out any.