very Disturbing Sh*T

[Snakelova4eva]

I was doing the routine change for my snakes and a came accross verry disturbing SH*T It looks like a half digested Fuzzie with white then sumtin the looks like ORGANS and feet/legs and Like a head shape I do NOT think this is natural can sumone PLEASe help me figure out what this is my temp is perfect if anyone is wondering if that could be the reason

 

[Kevin M]

Sounds like what your describing is a partially digested food item. If thats the case then your corn regurgitated it's last meal...

Can you please elaborate on "my temps are perfect"?

What ARE your temps? What type of heating to you use? Is it regulated by a thermostat? Are you monitoring it with a thermometer? How long did you wait before handling your corn after its last meal? (If you handled it at all...)

The more info you give us all, The better we can help you.

 

[13mur 6]

No, I don't think that's a regurge. If undigested mouse parts are present with urea, or fecal matter, it's not a regurge. Also, all the mouse parts should not be pink unless it's skin. The "organs" you might be seeing should be a dark color, not quite black, but atleast grey. Also as a side note, this mostly pertains to adult corns, but mouse feet and tails are almost never fully digested and come out pretty much as mouse feet and tails. Also a note on the urea, the urea part should be slightly more yellow than normal if this indeed happened.

My snake had the same thing. I saw it come out the rear end while giving it a bath so I KNOW it's stool and not vomit. I'll post pics once a get a digicam and she poops for me again in a couple days.

Is there a heavy load of mucous present with the stool? If it is I would run that snake to the vet right away and get a fecal and bacterial culture done. Could be something real serious (like Crypto. If it is crypto, you have a dead snake on your hands, and possibly every snake/lizard/turtle in the house is also potentially dead).

Also, check your temps, might be too cold. Is your snake the timid type? Put in more hides in the warm area.

Also look for a soft lump that comes and goes in the midsection of the snake. I'd be really interested if it does (i.e. if your snake hasn't eaten in 3 days, but all of a sudden she looks like she's eaten something).

This interests me a hella lot, because no one on this forum, or my vet, or I could identify my snake's problem. But other than the nasty stools and the lump she eats fine, no shedding problems, and is pretty active like a healthy snake should. And no, it's not cryptosproridium, I don't think she'd be alive now if it was crypto.

Keep us updated, I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat till ya come back with some info.

Post cage setup, temps, feeding schedule, etc too.

In all possibility, it might actually just have been a bad mouse and she had "diarrhea". If it happens again, definately check it out.

-13mur 6

 

[Snakelova4eva]

i use

a heat pad and a heat lamp on a timer 12 hours on 12 hours off my temp is 81-82 on the warm side and 70-72 on cool side and it is not regurdge i saw it come out And What exactly is Crypto I have no Clue My snake is not timid and is very active he is 22 inches 02 baby i have clean watter all the time my feeding schedule is every tueday and fri-sat on a lardge fuzzie is that everything u needed to know

 

[13mur 6]

Cryptosporidium is a very contagious parasitic protozoan that will kill your snake even if you treat it with medication. If your snake however does survive the ordeal, he will be a permanent carrier of the cryptosporidium protozoan and could infect your other animals even if he looks completely healthy.

So was there mucous in the stool?

Does your snake have a lump?

Your temps are a little on the low side, I'd raise them to 75 low, and 85 warm, or even higher to 77 cool, and 87 warm. Make sure your temps are being taken on top of the substrate on not the ambient air temp, the substrate could actually be up to 10 deg higher than the ambient air.

Also, are the mice you're feeding frozen/thawed, or are they live/fresh prekilled? Your mice could be giving your snake bugs too.

If you still have that poop and it's still moist, I'd put it in a small plastic container and run if to the vet as soon as you can.

-13mur 6

 

[panda]

Undigested poop

I have seen the same thing. I'm pretty sure it is undigested pinky material in the feces. There also seems to be pus or mucus. I had the crypto test on the feces and it was negative. Maybe a more comprehensive test is in order. Keep me posted as I would like to know what you find.

 

[Susan]

13mur 6

Don't completely rule out crypto on your snake. Corns have been known to live at least 2 years with this disease before eventually dying.

 

[13mur 6]

To effectively diagnose crytpo, a stomach wash is needed. However, do not forget that stomach washes have an inherent high risk factor, and cryto has many more symptoms than just bad stools.

Symptoms include: Mucous laden + cottage cheesy stools; Constant regurgitations; extreme weight loss (60-70%); dehydration; and in advanced stages a firm hard lump in the stomach area caused by regional swelling of tissue.

-13mur 6

 

[13mur 6]

Oh, one more thing, I forgot to metion my corn's symptoms.

Mucousy, undigested stools occasionally (~50% of the stools are infact normal urea and black stool).

Slight weight loss, and now regaining weight. She's roughly 18" long and weighs 65 grams and gaining.

Loss of appetite and regurge. Used to be regurge every other meal. My snake hasn't regurged once in the last 6 feedings, and mouse size has increased from small pinkie to fuzzy, feeding one mouse every 3-4 days now to increase weight gain. Her appetite is also back to normal, as she seems to eat without hesitation whenever I feed her.

The strangest symptom by far is a soft lump in the stomach region that comes and goes. It is most apparent after 3 days of a meal and a number of hours after a bowel movement (i.e. if she ate saturday night, she'll usually poop tuesday morning and the lump becomes apparent by tuesday evening). The lump will stay until I feed her again or I handle her where it'll reappear in a couple hours, and it pretty much dissappears after a couple hours of feeding.

There have also been times when the lump decides to grow and shrink in a matter of seconds. I've visually witnessed the lump at a very slight stage grow to the with of my thumb (making the snake look like she ate a small adult mouse, this is three days after her last meal), and then shrink to nothing all within a minute.

I've palpated the lump and found no firm mass, but a soft, almost water balloon like mass in the stomach area. I'm almost certain that this is a gaseous buildup. This can be especially apparent when I'm soaking her, since that part of her body floats.

Other than those symptoms she has no other maladies of any sort. Her skin is shiny and irridescent, her sheds come off in 1 piece, she doesn't spend any time soaking, she's active and alert, no strange discharges coming from anywhere, all in all a healthy snake aside from her strange stools and lump.

I gave her a dose of Flagyl and Panacur as a precaution last week, and second dosed her yesterday. The drugs seem to have little effect.

I ran a fecal last week (smear and float) and found nothing, no eggs, nothing moving, nothing aside from a mouse pinworm on the smear. I've sent in a bacteria culture and awaiting the results. I'll post results as soon as they get back.

For now, I'm ruling out crypto as the culprit, since she pretty much would've been dead by now and would be in much worse shape, plus the fecal came out negative, and the lump is soft, not hard, also none of the symptoms really match, other than the mucous in the stool.

-13mur 6

 

[panda]

Syptoms

I'm still very interested in your findings and a little more history of your snake. I only began to see the syptoms in several hatchlings after purchaseing one at a show from a guy from New york. I sure have learned my lession about the importnace of quarintining new snakes and only buying from reputable dealers. this guy had about 30 hatclings in one deli container, and when he gave me mine he put in a used container. This snake ate a couple times normally, but after about 3 weeks regurged and hasn't eaten since. unfortunatley I may have cross contaminated other hatchlings by moving a uneated pinky to another snake.

 

[13mur 6]

hmm... history...

I actually acquired this snake from a petstore in early April 2002 in a rather sorry state. She was dehydrated, and very nervous. I think the petstore just didn't provide her with enough hides and clean water. I did check her out the moment I got her and vet said she had no parasites or any sort of illness other than being underweight and dehydrated and having a few old scars. I got her home and quarantined her in my quarantine room in my basement for 2 months just in case.

The petstore had a policy where if I recieved a sick animal or the animal got sick or died within a month of purchase, I could return it and get a full refund (probably because Petland Discounts is such a horrible place to get animals from). Most of the snakes I've seen there were beyond help, but this particular snake seemed she could make it, and with an awesome price tag of $30 (this is in a chain petstore), who could argue?

She turned out to be one healthy snake, ate like a champ eating 2 hoppers every week, had beautiful skin, had some interesting patterns all over her (almost like a soup of motely, milk, striped and some strang spiraling at the tail), and she was getting nice and fat, almost borderline overweight, and had the nicest temperment I've seen any yearling snake have. She continued to grow until around late October.

In September, I moved from my home in NYC to Michigan to attend university. During that time, the air was excessively dry, and there seemed to be a hella lot of fungal spores and pollen in the air. I had my snake's cage on a desk near a window and at the time I had the window open because it was so hot in the room. By October I started turning up her heat pad but kept the window open. One day it decided to get bitter cold on me and I ran home to find my snake had regurged and looking real lethargic and she felt real cold. So I immediately closed the window and upped the temps in her cage so she could heal. I fed her 10 days after that incident with the smallest pinkie I could find, and she regurgitated that one too after 3 days. After 2 more regurges, she finally kept one down, and it's been a regurge every other meal since then.

I started noticing the lump about midway through this, around December. The lump initially made the snake look like it had eaten a fuzzy. I got worried right off thinking it was crypto and did a fecal finding nothing. This whole entire time I'm also looking for a qualified reptile vet in my area and turning up nothing but cat/dog vets.

Mid January I say fudge it and took her to the only vet around that saw snakes. She ran a fecal and saw nothing as well. She prescribed flagyl and panacur as a precaution, but the drugs had no effect. Her appetite and regurges have improved since december by this time, and she's slowly putting on weight again.

Cage temps the entire time have been 85 F on the warm side 75 F on the cool side. Water available in a large doggy bowl at all times that seconded as a hide (had one of those handle holes on the bottom), and another hide on the other side. A coolwhip container with a hole and wet paper towels in occasionally for moisture and a bath occasionally for more moisture, and paper towel bedding.

I'm feeding her now every 3-4 days and she's keeping every meal down. She was 58 grams and 18 inches late December, now she's 65 grams and gaining. The lump is still there but only sometimes. After I feed her the lump is gone, 3 days after the lump comes back.

Hope that covers everything.

Also a side note, the mice I've been feeding her also changed. I used to breed my own mice and freeze them, but now I have to rely on petstore bought mice, and frankly I don't trust them too much.

-13mur 6

 

[panda]

undigested feces

I am seeing this again. After about three days the hatchling is passing undigested, rotten pinky parts. It might be temperature related, but I suppose I should have some sort of culture done. The feces did turn up negative for crypto, and I understand a stomach wash is really needed. It just seems as if the snake is haveing trouble digesting the meal. Has anyone else ever seen this?

 

[13mur 6]

Some updates

Well, seems like we're having the same problem. My snake last Saturday had a stool that very much smelled like a regurge. The stool consisted of a large amount of normal looking stool (probably due to the larger pinkie I fed her), and also a very deflated looking pinkie. I'm almost certain this came out of her rear end, but the smell had me thinking, why now does it start to smell like a regurge when her previous stools did not? Also, I gave her a dose of Flagyl and Panacur last week too on tues.

Anyone have a clue?

-13mur 6

 

[CornCrazy]

I have a snake that does this also...

I have noticed the foul smell of a regurge, only to find a nasty stool with a partially undigested mouse in it. I have started feeding MUCH smaller meals to see if it takes care of the problem. I sure hope it does!

 

[13mur 6]

Hmm... what a connundrum this is... I'm feeding more often and slightly larger mice to my snake so she can gain some weight after loosing so much the past couple months. I'm hoping that she'll simply speed up her metabolism and digestive processes to cope with the food. Keep us updated on how your method goes.

-13mur 6

 

[panda]

Too many of us are seeing thsi problem

Another one of my hactchlings from last Septemper was doing great. After warming about three weeks ago it ate 3 or 4 meals with normal looking stools. This last feeding I see the deflated pinky stool agian. What a bummer. These snakes must have some type of metabolic ailment that we are missing. Has anyone had a bacterial culture done?

I am sure we can't have a common thread, but who knows. My snake was sold to me by a broker type from NY at a show.

 

[13mur 6]

I'M GONNA KILL MY VET

It's been 2 and 1/2 weeks and still no word from my vet. She initially said 2-3 days, then 1 week to 10 days. Well it's been WAY past that, I want those results and I want em now!

Okies, now with that off my chest. Snake, yes, poop. My snake had two normal looking poops on very small fuzzy mice in the last week. Sunday, I fed her a notch up on size, moving to medium/largish peach fuzzies, and today, oh man. She had one hella nasty looking poop. It was so nasty looking I was afraid to clean her cage! But yesh, deflated mouse + gobs of grey things that looked like intestines, errr... organs... err... things... + a heaping amount of decent looking poo. Oh, and the smell, there was none... or close to none... could barely smell it, and it didnt' even smell remotely of regurge. Also, there seemed to be a good deal of... liquid, like she pooped water almost, but it got quickly soaked up by her paper towel bedding so I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

She seems to be getting more muscular. Her belly seems almost concave now and very squared off (compared to the roundness she had the week before). She gives a good gripping cling to my arm, but I dunno if she gained any weight (she looks like she did though), I broke my friggin digi-scale, grr.... BUT, I can still feel her ribs through he skin, she has a little bit of loose skin (I can sorta manipulate the skin sorta).

Also interesting thing I observed on the lump. The lump seems to be INSIDE her stomach. I carefully lifted her hide midday yesterday, and she stayed there asleep as if nothing happened digesting her mouse. She stayed like that for a whole 15 min before waking up, and the whole time, her stomach peristatic movements were very visible, where the lump was. The lump would contract at the top, then split in two and then the split would slowly move down in a peristaltic way until it became one lump again. Sometimes there were even 3 distinct lumps.

Well, gonna feed her a big one again tomorrow, hope she starts putting some flab on. Will post the moment I hear from vet after I yell at her tomorrow and demand my 65 bucks back for failure of delivery of service in a timely manner. These vets, thinking they can run off with my money, I'll show em!

-13mur 6

 

[13mur 6]

K, bacteria results came back, I posted under "culprit found....", take a look.

-13mur 6

 

[13mur 6]

Something just made a whole lot of sense to me.

My snake had a proteus bacteria infection (it's pretty much gone now ). When I read up on the bacteria, it said it grew in stages, having a stage of growth, and then a stage of super rapid spreading. During the spreading stage, the bacteria thin out and become a super fine layer (in humans it's a layer in your bladder, and causes urinary tract infections), and during growth, they release a lot of metabolites (one of them could be gas). This would explain why my snake had a lump in her belly sometimes, and it would go away if a bothered her (releasing gas), or fed her, and this happened 3 days after feeding (peak digestion has occured and easy to absorb nutrients are available in large quantities for the bacteria to soak up).

Just an interesting thing that hit me.

-13mur 6