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Snake just regurgitated... please help.

R

replover

New member
One of my corns just regurgitated a mouse. I am very surprised and quite worried as it is a young baby snake.

I have no idea why. It was fed in regular intervals and has been a good feeder for the past weeks. It ate no problem swallowed no problem. The snake grew a bit bigger so I decided to up the size of the mouse but it is still just a pinky and it was only slightly bigger than the snake at the thickest part. It ate it fine and I put it back in the enclosure and an hour later saw the mouse on the floor.

What should I do? Should I do nothing to let it hide and recover? Should I not feed it again for a week?
 
just read the regurge sticky, but to summarise, don't feed for 10 days, to let the snake's gastric system recover
 
I did read it. I will not feed again for 8 - 10 days and feed smaller prey next few feedings.
There is from Kathy Love's FAQ also that she has had success with nutribac df... I have that in my house. However, the link to her instructions of what to do with it is dead.

Should I sprinkle the nutribac into the pinky upon the next feeding? Or pet some in the drinking water? If so, how much?

I dont want to do any syringe feeding of nutribac water as I don't have the skills and don't really think I should be anyway.
 
sorry, I use grapefruit seed extract in the snakes' water, so I can't help with the nutribac, I'm sure someone else will be along soon with the info you need. Good luck
 
Is there any immediate emmergency thing I need to do now other than just wait 10 days and feed smaller prey with nutribac on it?

I'm still wondering why the heck it regurgitated!
 
check temperature? often too high or conversely too low can cause regurges, don't handle the snake at all in case the problem is stress-related, and then wait. That's all I know, and it usually works, but as I said, you need someone else to tell you the nutribac info
 
I am sure everything is right as far as temps and everything goes. The only thing that changed was that the prey size this time was bigger than before, which I had moved up because, ironically, this one is the biggest and strongest of all my three corns and according to its growth it should be ready for bigger mice. I've learned a valuable lesson to err on the safe side as far as prey size increases from now on.

I'm not going to give up on her. She'll make it I just know! I'll make her make it.
 
replover said:
I'm not going to give up on her. She'll make it I just know! I'll make her make it.
Click to expand...

First of all, calm down. A regurge can be very frightening, and potentially serious, but there is no need to panic. Regurges don't always indicate an irreversable problem; often it's husbandry which can be corrected.

Question: do these pinkies leave a lump in your snake? If there is still a visible lump, then you probably should not move up a prey size.

Don't feed again for at least 10 days.

Another question, did you handle the snake after feeding? When you put it back in the viv, is there any chance you might have gripped the lump or anything like that?
 
No I didn't handle her after feeding beyond putting her back in the tank. I am sure I didn't grip the lump either because all I did was put the feeding box in the tank and "ushered" her out back into the tank.

The old mice was small enough NOT to leave any visible lump in her. In fact, the old size she was eating two at a time for the last few weeks, so I thought I'd get a bigger one. And yes, this time, the lump seemed much bigger than it did in previous feedings of two smaller mice, although to be honest, the pinky this time didn't LOOK that much bigger than the old ones when I was feeding it. It swallowed it very fast too it wasn't like there was any difficulty. But judging from the fact that nothing had changed since last feeding except prey size, I think it must be it.

She's actually the biggest one of my three corns!
 
Based on what you're saying, I'd say the size was fine. Is it from a different batch then your other pinkies? I've had regurges before but they seem to happen after a few days. The fact that yours regurged the same day may suggest a foul pinky.:puke01:
 
One thing is, after I put her back into the tank, she was crawling around a bit before going back to the hide. Seemed very active and I thought everything must have been ok. It must not have been long before she regurged because afterwards I went to feed my ball python and when I got back I saw the mouse there and I was at first like "What is that? Poop?" then I saw it was a mouse and I was like "Huh? Did I feed IN the tank and just leave the mouse there? Am I on DRUGS?" for like 2 seconds. THEN it dawned on me what happened.
 
dwyn127 said:
Based on what you're saying, I'd say the size was fine. Is it from a different batch then your other pinkies? I've had regurges before but they seem to happen after a few days. The fact that yours regurged the same day may suggest a foul pinky.:puke01:
Click to expand...

Well if it was a foul pinky then I'm done in for good... because I fed ALL THREE CORN SNAKES TODAY WITH THE SAME BATCH OF PINKIES!!!!!
I wanna die now.

I don't see why they be bad because I usually feed Frozen thawed but today I ran out and bought new pinkies (from the same place I got them). They were alive. I killed them before feeding. They were not frozen this time.
 
You can't blame yourself for giving her a bigger pinky. After all, she is going to grow and the food size has to grow with her. I can't say why she regurged. It may or may not have been anything you did. Sometimes there is an obvious husbandry problem. Sometimes there is a not so obvious health problem. Sometimes you just don't know what happened.

If it was a live pinky, it is unlikely it was bad. If she'd been eating two pinkies, it is unlikely that the one was too big. Internal parasites may be a factor. If you can take a poop sample to the vet, he can check for those.

Anyway, she is not in immediate danger of imminent death. Just leave her alone for the ten days, other than to change her water daily. If you have grapefruit seed extract, put that into the water. I use about 3 drops per 8 oz. of water. If you don't have that, put a good pinch of nutribac into the water. When you feed her again, give her a pinky that is significantly smaller that what she is used to eating. If you feed two, give only one. If you feed one, give her half of one. TIP: they are easier to cut in half when they are frozen. Once the pinky is thawed, sprinkle a good size pinch of nutribac on the pinky, feed her. If you don't already have her on paper towels or newspaper, switch her substrate to one of those until you get past this. It'll be much easier to see regurges that way, plus you can feed in the viv. You want to keep stress to a minimum. If this means moving her viv a quieter corner of the house, or covering it with a light blanket, do so.

If it sounds like I know what I'm talking about, unfortunately I do. I have one baby that goes into regurge cycles every couple of months or so. The vet doesn't know what is wrong, and when she is holding her food down, she is still growing, though slowly.

Good luck with yours.
 
If I were to cut the pinky next time for smaller feeding do I cut it lengthwise or front/back?
The blood's gonna go all over the place right?
 
Oh well I guess thumping myself on the head is not going to work.

One of the other ones regurged too, this is a few hours later. For this one, I am SURE it wasn't the size of the prey. It was actually like 25% smaller than the snake in girth. I was going to feed two but it refused the second one.

So now I have two snakes that I fed last night that have regurged. The female normal and the male blizzard. The male normal is still holding the meal...knock on wood.

Oh man this is really annoying.
 
Is it at all possible that since they were so used to eating frozen thawed, that I fed them fresh killed this time they regurged?? It didn't seem to make sense for me to freeze them first before I fed as I bought the mice that day. THought I'd feed what was needed for the day and freeze the rest.
 
I very much doubt being fresh killed can cause a regurge. I think you may not have good pinkies, considering your other snakes are regurging too. The other thing to think about is, are all your snakes kept exactly the same? Ie, if they're all at the same temperature, perhaps the temperatures are not right.
 
Is it also a possibility that they were starting to go into shed, but not noticeable yet, and then they ate and thus regurged?? My blizzard has been here for 4 weeks and hasn't shed yet. The other one that threw up was here for 2 weeks. Both from the same breeder and said that each had shed about a week before they were given to me. There were no dulling of the eyes or bluish color or fading of skin or anything but can it be the process just started?

They took a little longer than usual to get to the food. Usually I put them into the feeding box and bang. But this past feeding they crawled around a little bit like a minute before eating. The one that hasn't...knock on wood... regurged took the food immediately as usual.
 
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