Tired of regurges...

Hey everyone,

Looks like ole' Conundrum is back to his old habits. I'm wondering if I should put him down...

This is the snake that's had that proteus bacterial infection over the winter and that wierd lump that came and went in his stomach and the undigested poop. The undigested poop part got fixed just recently, about a month or two ago, but this spontaneous occasional regurge is driving me up the wall. He's 28" long and he can't keep down a fuzzy (my 24" blizzard is wolfing down large fuzzies once a week), but he can keep down pinkies. He isn't putting on any weight even though I've been feeding him 2 pinks every 3-4 days, 3 will cause him to regurge, his spine is still showing, I can feel his ribs through his skin, and he hasn't given me a shed since DECEMBER! His fecal exams are always negative, acid fast was negative.

He regurges out of the blue about once a month, and he seems to drop a couple grams in weight everytime he does this. No vets in all of NYC can help this guy which is absolutely shocking to me. Can't draw blood from him to do any blood tests because none of the vet techs are skilled enough. Maybe he's got some wierd virus infection... I mean how much can a little snake take before dying of exhaustion from a sickness? this guy's been going for close to a year now.

So what would you guys do? I'm at a total loss of options. I'm also afraid this thing my spread to my other snakes, but so far I haven't seen anything out of place with them.

-Lemur 6

What are you feeding?

Are you feeding live or f/t???

If your feeding live it may be that the regurges are caused by his stomach not being able to break down the mouse'sbody...If this is the case, try f/t as freezing the mouse actually helps break-down the cell structure...

The reason I'm saying this is cause I have a male, that when fed live regurges almost everytime...If he didn't regurge the live mouse,his bowel movements looked like the mouse he ate...If fed f/t he has no trouble digesting it and his bowel movements are normal...It took me months to figure this out...

I think this come's from the stomach of the snake not having enough good bacteria to do the job...

Of course after a lifetime of frozen food, I don't think even humans could digest a fresh steak...

Just some food for thought,

Gregg

The symptoms you describe sound suspiciously like crypto. I'm assuming your vets have tested for crypto?

Last summer, Kathy Love recommended adding a few tiny drops of grapefruit-seed extract to the water of one of my weaklings who regurged frequently. I got a small (2 oz.) bottle of the stuff at our local healthfood store for about $10. It definitely helped.

Best of luck.
Liz

I agree with trying GSE grapefruit seed extract. I used it on a hognose that was regurging about every other meal. It was eating pinkies at the time. I treated it with GSE for about two months. It's been four months now since the day I started the treatment and it is eating small adult mice now without a single regurge.

I'm positive it's not crypto. Did some acid fast stains at this microbiology lab at the place I work at and all of them were negative, the ones I did and the ones the lab techs did, on multiple samples and different dates. Also, fecals my vet did and the ones I did showed nothing out of the ordinary (though some interesting things showed, like mouse whiskers, tiny tiny claws, few random microscopic bones on the smear, and floats never showed anything). Also, if it was crypto, I think this guy would'a died a long time ago judging his health, and I'd see strange things in my other snakes as well.

I've been trying the GSE on and off since winter, and it doesn't seem to show any impact on any sort of dose (I've tried strongish to weak and everywhere in between). I've noticed that when I use the GSE, he drinks a bit less, now I just add a single drop into his water bowl to keep it bacteria free as possible.

I've also tried using probiotic supplements, which seemed to be what got rid of the undigested nasty looking poo, but it also seemed to make his poo pale looking.

I've been feeding freshly killed in order to attempt to break that "weakened digestive tract syndrome" in all my snakes, now that you bring it up, maybe I'll go back to frozen thawed and see how things go, hopefully that's what's causing the problem and he'll put on some grams and quit regurging every month.

-Lemur 6

where did you find GSE that cheap? everywhere I have seen it for 50-75 for a small bottle.

Lemur,

In no way am I providing an answer to this predicament, just what I'd do in your situation.
1)Keep the cage temp between 85-86f. IMHO, a little "hot" for corns day and night, but not by much.
2)GSE added to bottled water (not D/I or R/O) just in case he's sensitive to drinking tap and that's messing with his gut.
3)try his digestive reaction to f/t, better yet, if availible, a quail egg. Don't worry, if it's fresh, he shoud eat it.
4)give him the most stress-free existence possible, minimal handling, just opening the cage for food, water, easy cage cleaning by removing him with his hide into a new set-up.
5)Brumate him this winter. Even if he looks too skinny. He may not make it, but many finicky hatchlings have turned around trying this method. Maybe make it only a month or so, but the dormant period seems to give them "healing time." If he isn't any better after brumation, he probably wasn't meant to live. I hate that, but some snakes just don't have it in them. And you wouldn't want to breed such an animal anyway.
Just my 5 cents...

The other thing you may try if you are worried about him having trouble breaking down his meals is to feed him split fuzzies (cut longitudinally down the middle) so that they are the width of a pinky and the length of two.

Benefits of this are:

1) Getting more nutrition into him. I've noticed a huge jump in growth when I can get hatchlings onto fuzzies vs. pinkies. If it's the size that's getting him, but he handles 2 pinkies just fine, then a 1/2 of a split fuzzy shouldn't bother him.

2) You give 'instant access' to the nutrients. The snake's digestive system doesn't have to try and get through the skin and fascia to get to the nutrients. They digest much faster and with much less stress to the snake.

If the snake won't eat a split fuzzy, the other thing I would suggest in addition to feeding frozen/thawed is to poke multiple holes or cut multiple hash marks through the skin of his pinkies to enable him to digest more quickly/easily.

Just a couple more thoughts, good luck with him.

Another question: How long does it normally take a snake to regain lost weight assuming you put them on a good feeding schedule? I've never really had to deal with puttin wieght on a skinny snake so I don't have too much experience in what to expect. And how long can a snake go without a shed before it becomes unhealthy?

Currently, the temps are: 88F on the warm side, and 79F on the cool side. He seems to like the cool end as I almost never see him on the warm end.

Also, he's not a hatchling, this guy's over 2 years old now. When he was a yearling, he was awesome, big husky healthy guy, but things went down hill ever since he got sick. So he's pretty dwarfed for his age.

But yes, I was planning on brumating this snake over the winter, put him in my minifridge and hold him at about 50 F for a month or two, and hopefully he'll be ready to eat when he comes to.

Hurley, how do your snakes manage to handle a messy meal like a sagitally sliced fuzzy? I've tried decapitated fuzzies, but it gets everywhere, I imagine sagitally sliced fuzzies to be worse. I might try slicing a few grooves into a pinkie in 9 days, hopefully he won't regurge after.

-Lemur 6

Honestly, I use a scissors to split a freshly thawed fuzzy (less messy than with a knife) and place it and the snake in an empty plastic container with "messy side up". I've heard others recommend messy side down and that their snakes don't seem to like them messy side up....I honestly haven't seen a difference with mine.

You can also make them less messy by cutting diagonally so you don't have to split the head and you avoid splitting most of the abdomen...but this increases the width and I've found they have the biggest trouble with the head, so I stick to longitudinal.

Yes, it's messy. Yep, gross too...but it saved at least 3 of my poor feeders from last year. I had 2 that were backbone-sticking-out skinny and wouldn't eat more than 1 small pinky. Within 3 split small fuzzies, they started to fill out and haven't looked back.

The only reason I recomment the splitters over slicing pinkies is because they will get more bang for their buck, nutrition-wise. It seems to jump start them.

JMHO

edit: Oh yeah, and yes, they smear juice everywhere, but plastic containers clean up easily and an eating snake is worth it to me. They seem to take one or two bites at it before they figure out how to go about eating it....but once they start in, they don't seem to have a problem. I also combine this with the "therapeutic neglect" principle and stick them in their containers for the overnight, shut off the lights, and don't peek until morning.

You can reduce the juice by putting them on paper towel...but then you really do have to put them messy side up or they stick to the paper.

Whatever works for you.

Lemur

While I've never cut one down the middle , I have cut up share and prefer to do it with an exacto-knife while frozen. Works like a champ and is far less messy. Not that it's FUN or anything!

what would happen if I chopped the fuzzy in half while still frozen (those cleavers work wonderfully for chopping frozen meat), and let that thaw?

Oh boy, I hope this snake doesn't get hooked on chopped mice, my kitchen's gonna look like a slaughter house (not that I really give much a hoot about chopping mice with the same cleavers I use to chop my food in half assuming it's gonna get cooked).

-Lemur 6

Yeah, depends on how good you are with a cleaver. I like my fingers too much and am just a poor enough shot that that wouldn't be a good method for me.

Whacking up a frozen fuzzy with a knife would take too much grunting for me.

A quick snip of a dedicated-for-mice scissors and it's over...that's why I do it that way.

Whatever works for you, go with it.

Point is that you can get more nutrition into them with the same sized meal and speed up digestion by taking away the cutaneous barrier.

I wonder if anyone's tried skinning a mouse and feeding that to their snakes.

Also, I've noticed that my snakes stomach blows up like a balloon a couple hours to a day after feeding, this is even with a normalish sized meal. Bothering him at this stage seems to cause a regurge. Indigestion anyone? The stuff that this snake does is mind boggling sometimes.

-Lemur 6

Khaman said:

where did you find GSE that cheap? everywhere I have seen it for 50-75 for a small bottle.

Click to expand...

Most health food stores carry it and it's about $10 for a 1.5 oz. bottle, which will last you a long time.

another idea

this is a far fetch idea but might work.. my freind had an adult corn that regureged every other time he ate..even though hes 4 years old this cam out of no were...so instead of feeding him the frozen thawed mice i told him to buy hairless mice and knock them out and let the snake eat.. this seemd to workl. the snake gained weight and llooked happier later fnding out the vet was stupid and didnt read the tests right and saw the snake had crypto(hope i got it spelled right) maybe that will help..

I'm not too sure where I would acquire hairless mice outside of the lab I work in and they're bloody expensive to feed to a snake ($18 each for the cheapest strain). Plus I think the problem is feeding the knocked out mice to the snake and not frozen thawed.

So wait, did the vet mistakenly tell your friend that his snake had crypto when he didn't, or did the vet say the snake didn't have crypto when he did infact have crypto. It's hard to believe a snake with crypto could recover from being fed nude mice (or anything for that matter, I think once a snake has crypto he's pretty much a goner).

Oh wells, we'll see in about a week what my snake thinks about chopped mice... funny thing happend btw, one of my breeder mice are obese, and none of my others are... maybe I've got hereditary obesity floating around in my mouse colony but didn't notice because I kill off all the offspring before they show it, maybe that's what's causing my snake to regurge, I would think fatty mice are hard to digest...

-Lemur 6

13mur 6 said:

maybe I've got hereditary obesity floating around in my mouse colony but didn't notice because I kill off all the offspring before they show it, maybe that's what's causing my snake to regurge, I would think fatty mice are hard to digest...

-Lemur 6

Click to expand...

I guess it would be pretty hard to digest nothing but alot of fat...Maybe you should start your colony over and get some non-obese mice...

On th other hand, maybe you get some mice from a different strain and feed them to your corn...Try it and see if it works...

that he didnt have it.. but he did later die but he did live a little longer.. as for the mice.... at the pet store by my house there only 1.35 and thats what i bred and get my pinkys and hoppers.. my snakes seemt o be dooing very well on them....

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