Hi All,
While cleaning our cages today, I found these in one of our females cage (picture below). There are 11 total, 10g for the entire… (clutch?) She’s only 1 year and 9 months old and 700g. She’s of course never been paired. While I’ve seen lots of slugs from older girls, I’ve never seen any this small, or from a girl this young. Anyone else seen this before? - Peter
Those don’t look like any slugs I have ever seen. I’m going to freely admit I’m not sure what’s going on here. But in my opinion I don’t think there slugs. Where they clumped up like that when you found them? Almost looks like two day old hominy lol
Yes, I found them exactly like that, with some coconut stuck to them. At first I thought they were urates, but they are nothing like urates, and instead wet and almost oily.
I’ll cut one or two open when I get home to see what the insides look like.
Fill us in on that I’m definitely a bit intrigued.
I’ve seen this before, color was a bit different (more pink) but I’m fairly certain it’s a digestive byproduct and not a reproductive one.
I agree with @ballornothing & @saleengrinch also since she is a juvenile and never paired with a male, I wouldn’t think eggs either. I would think she is far to young one the weird chance of parthenogenesis which is a rare occurrence anyway. Did she have any issues with weird stool, regurgitation? That’s where I would start, I would quarantine, put her on paper towels so I can see everything clear, and feed and watch her for the next couple weeks. Hopefully just a weird one off thing, but better safe then sorry. Good luck
I for sure believe no matter what it is there is a underlining cause.
Let’s jump right to the pictures. The first couple are me slicing one in half, and a quick view through my mantis. The next set are from a real microscope. The ruler shown on those is roughly correct, but the camera on the phones magnification factor isn’t perfectly taken into account.
From what I can tell, it’s mostly fat cells, with some blood supply throughout.
Mine definitely have a pink hue to them.
Oh that’s wild, love the microscope pics. I’ve seen other posts before about people finding similar fatty deposits in their ball python enclosure and but nobody has had an answer as what they are.
There hasn’t been any strange stools, and there hasn’t been any regurgitation from her, or her sisters who are actually all still in quarantine (10 months in currently).
To be honest, your best bet is to refrigerate a sample and get a veterinarian to send it for testing. Could be nothing, but it could also be a symptom of something.
What is your feeding profile for this animal (e.g., prey type and frequency)?
I’m feeding ASFs, and she’s fed a ~40g meal every 7-14 days with an average of about every 10 days. Here is a picture of her.
Everything from feeding and the snake itself seem on point. I really like those microscope pics, they were cool! I was thinking since you have the pics maybe you could see if a reptile specific vet would just view them over email or something. Could be easy for him to identify just from the pics. Without having to run additional tests? Worth a try in my opinion, might save time in getting a diagnosis if it’s something he has seen before?
I think this is kinda cute and funny.
Your baby laid baby eggs. XD
Looks like fat cells bud.
Fat cells are microscopic so you wouldnt see them, also fatr does not form in any canal that can pass it out, so its not fat, they are very imamature folloicles, pre-ovulation, never seen it before in 25 years of snakes breeding but that is the only logical explantion.
