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Underweight snake regurges and sheds partially and often

S

simonmc

New member
Hi folks.

I'd appreciate the opinion of those of you who have experteince of this issue:

I have a male candycane corn snake (5yr old) who has regurged each and every significant meal since late spring (having eaten virtually nothing from February until end of May) and is now seriously underweight. I'm feeding him 3-5 pinkies at a time every 5-6 days buit it's insufficient to maintain his weight and physiology and the nutritional balance is not great. He's been through the early stages of regrugeitation protocol four times. Each time he regurges the first small mouse;

He is almost constantly shedding, partially and in tatters;

The results from the lab are negative;

I cannot see anything wrong with the outer features; there are no discharges, swellings or injuries;

His faeces are not normal, (small and sometimes slightly red/brown) but neither is his diet;

I've considered food quaility (I use the best I can get in the UK);

Temps are always within a reasonable range (22 - 29C), humidity is variable (20-32%);

Habitual behaviour is inconclusive - he's permanently hungry, but recently has started to struggle to open his mouth - this seems to be stimulated by rapid movement of a food item;

Water quality is always good;

Substrate is very clean Aubiose (hemp);

Each of these criteria has been tested to isolate the cause with no significant findings;

I keep around 60-70 corn snakes under similar conditions. Only one other has feeding issues and has had since I removed him from a previous negligent owner;

I'm stuck. The last thing I've done is to bathe him in iodine solutioin in case he has a microscpoic fungal or bacterial skin infection.

Any idseas borne of experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

SimonMc
 
Oh, god... This is awful, both for you and the snake...
What does your vet say? They don't find anything wrong?
No intestinal parasites? Red/brown poo raises alarms of blood, so there has to be intestinal problems (maybe not caused by the diet).
I only have experience enough to suggest maybe bumping up humidity a bit? I think it's too low and your snake may also be dehydrated due to all this situation.
The more experienced members probably will give you tons of better advice than I have done.
I really hope you can take him out of this regurge downspiral. My best wishes.
 
yeah, 20% to 32% humidity is very low. Keep in mind Corn snakes are found native in the southeast USA. This region typically has humidity of about 50% almost all the time, and can frequently hit 80% or more. Most of us try to keep it around 40 to 60% and then even bump it up a bit more during a shed.

How are you heating? Are you using a heat pad underneath, an overhead light, or just going with temps within the room?
 
How sure are you of his age?
Have you ever treated him for mites?
Has he ever been treated for internal parasites?
 
mishima25 said:
Oh, god... This is awful, both for you and the snake...
What does your vet say? They don't find anything wrong?
No intestinal parasites? Red/brown poo raises alarms of blood, so there has to be intestinal problems (maybe not caused by the diet).
I only have experience enough to suggest maybe bumping up humidity a bit? I think it's too low and your snake may also be dehydrated due to all this situation.
The more experienced members probably will give you tons of better advice than I have done.
I really hope you can take him out of this regurge downspiral. My best wishes.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mishima
We don't have a vet around this area - the nearest specialist vet is two hours drive away which is not a good thing to submit the snake to unless I can find out the cause and it's worth the suffering.
I've increased the humidity, it's normally higher but I reduced it in case the ailment was a lung infection. The snake is pretty well hydrated and has constant access to water.
Thanks
 
Thanks Karl
As mentioned in response to Mishima, the humidity is usually higher but normally not above 40%. I increase humidity for shedding as required, but as all my other snakes are healthy, I'm not sure that humidity is the key factor here. However, I'll increases it and see what happens.
 
daddio207 said:
How sure are you of his age?
Have you ever treated him for mites?
Has he ever been treated for internal parasites?
Click to expand...

Hi Daddio
He was treated for mites when I first got him as he has two black dots on his belly and I panicked (in my then inexperienced way). They weren't mights and I dont have mites in my collection - they're regularly inspected carefully. Though I have considered whether there are colourless or microscopic mites/external parasites and so treated with iodine solution recently.

He hasn't ever been treated for internal parasites, though I sent a faeces sample to the lab which came back clean.

Thanks
 
simonmc said:
Hi Daddio
He was treated for mites when I first got him as he has two black dots on his belly and I panicked (in my then inexperienced way). They weren't mights and I dont have mites in my collection - they're regularly inspected carefully. Though I have considered whether there are colourless or microscopic mites/external parasites and so treated with iodine solution recently.

He hasn't ever been treated for internal parasites, though I sent a faeces sample to the lab which came back clean.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Even though the humidity isn't ideal it also isn't the issue. There is something going on internally. Disease or organ failure possibly. The constant tattered shedding is a sign that something is messing up its hormones. A cancer or a gland failure possibly.
Even though the feces came back clean it doesn't completely rule out internal parasites that only show up in the intestinal track when the parasite load overwhelms wherever they are residing. With a snake in that poor of condition I feel that treating the parasites could be detrimental to the host.
Sorry I cant be any positive help :(
 
Last edited:
Shedding is usually not an ambient humidity problem, it usually indicates the snake is dehydrated.

Are you familiar with the regurge protocol? Do you have access to NutriBAC? It might not help at this point, but it would be a good idea to follow the regurge protocol to a "T" with him, and see if it helps. The regurge protocol is typically geared towards babies, because they are more prone to regurges over adults. I would start with one whole pinky, rather than a pinky head, depending on his weight.

How much does he weigh?

The pinky mice are not sufficient nutrition, and if that is what he has been fed his whole life, that could be part of the problem. That said, you will still need to start with pinkies with the regurge protocol, and work him up to the appropriate sized prey.

If you can get him moved up in prey size, after going through it, you can try adding a vitamin supplement to help him.
I have used it in the past with females that are having trouble recovering after laying eggs. I got the idea from a friend of mine. She makes a slurry (mixing it with water) of reptile vitamins, she also adds ground up ferret food (it is what Kathy Love used for tube feeding non feeding babies). She saw a big difference in recovery, so I tried it a couple times, and it works well. I usually do not do the ferret food, I usually just mix the vitamin powder in water, put it in a syringe, and inject the mouse (f/t of course) with it before feeding the snake.

The one I have on hand right now is Herptivite with beta carotene. I had another one before, but I cannot recall the name of it.

I hope that you are able to save your snake! Usually, multiple regurges are fatal to the snake, but being an adult, maybe he will be able to pull through.

Please keep us posted!
 
MysticExotics said:
Shedding is usually not an ambient humidity problem, it usually indicates the snake is dehydrated.

Are you familiar with the regurge protocol? Do you have access to NutriBAC? It might not help at this point, but it would be a good idea to follow the regurge protocol to a "T" with him, and see if it helps. The regurge protocol is typically geared towards babies, because they are more prone to regurges over adults. I would start with one whole pinky, rather than a pinky head, depending on his weight.

How much does he weigh?

The pinky mice are not sufficient nutrition, and if that is what he has been fed his whole life, that could be part of the problem. That said, you will still need to start with pinkies with the regurge protocol, and work him up to the appropriate sized prey.

If you can get him moved up in prey size, after going through it, you can try adding a vitamin supplement to help him.
I have used it in the past with females that are having trouble recovering after laying eggs. I got the idea from a friend of mine. She makes a slurry (mixing it with water) of reptile vitamins, she also adds ground up ferret food (it is what Kathy Love used for tube feeding non feeding babies). She saw a big difference in recovery, so I tried it a couple times, and it works well. I usually do not do the ferret food, I usually just mix the vitamin powder in water, put it in a syringe, and inject the mouse (f/t of course) with it before feeding the snake.

The one I have on hand right now is Herptivite with beta carotene. I had another one before, but I cannot recall the name of it.

I hope that you are able to save your snake! Usually, multiple regurges are fatal to the snake, but being an adult, maybe he will be able to pull through.

Please keep us posted!
Click to expand...

Hi

This snake is an adult and prior to the regurgitation starting had been happily digesting one large mouse every 7 -8 days and the occasional day old chick. He's only eating pinkies now as this is the first stage of the regurge protocol and it gets food inside him; as mentioned in my post above, every time he gets to the small mouse stage he regurges, so I've gone back to stage one and multiplied the small items as this is all that's working at the moment. I'm aware of the regurge protocols and I'm using a protocol for adult corn snakes.

I've tried vitiamin suppliments though these have had no obvious effect.

Thanks for your comments
 
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