New BP keeper here. I actually found my BP last Monday evening while out on a run. I’m in North TX but we were having a cold snap that night, so I called a friend with experience. She came and picked her up but I did a deep dive into BPs over the next few days and decided to take her back/keep her.
I’ve got a 4x2x16" Zen setup, and the BP is just over 4’ long, 1448 grams. My friend that had her for a few days pulled a couple ticks off of her, and wasn’t able to get her to eat. Any thoughts as to…
A) What morph it is? Looks like a banana from what I can tell but the markings aren’t quite as defined as a lot of the pictures I’ve found.
B) the brown spots. Mites was first thought, but doesn’t seem to be the case. I’ve read that Bananas develop black spots but these look different. Friend is thinking it may be damage she picked up while out on her own.
C) how long should I wait to feed? I’ve read they want to acclimate for a bit before they’ll usually eat, but we’ve got no idea when the last time she fed was, at best tit was a week ago, possibly much longer.
That definitely looks like some nasty sores from her time out in the wild to me. I would consider having her looked at by a qualified reptile vet. The larger reddish brown looking sores are what worry me because that could be signs of a systemic infection. At the very least, I would consider giving her a warm soak in clean water, after a few minutes you can add a bit of iodine to make it a pale tea color. It will help with some of the more lifted sores and scales.
But if she was my rescue, I would definitely take her to a vet and get her some antiparasitic and make sure she doesn’t have an infection or need antibiotics for her skin condition.
What a lovely surprise to find! A sweet snake! Welcome to the forum!
And yeah, as said above, because this snake was out loose for long enough to get into health trouble it is a very good idea to go promptly to your nearest Exotic Vet. A regular dog and cat vet that doesn’t say they specialize in reptiles will not know much to help a snake. Let us know if you need help finding one in your area. It might be a bit of a drive depending on your luck but hopefully they will be somewhere nearby.
You can check your local classified and facebook pages for anyone asking about a missing snake, but being found outdoors might mean it was “set free”= abandoned.
The Exotic Vet can tell you if there’s anything bothering her/him, and sex it for you to find out which you have got, a male or a female. Helpful to know as females can be a bit on the larger side as they grow, whereas if it’s a male this snake might be just about full grown.
Best wishes for a swift settling in and good health.
Your enclosure size sounds good if that’s a floor space of 4x2.
One of my favorite youtube channels for Ball Python care is Green Room Pythons. I highly recommend it to people with a new BP for being a good source of informative and updated care from a funny guy.
You just found a Ball Python while on a walk? Why can’t that just happen to me? I’ve actually had multiple dreams of finding bunches of them in my neighborhood. Those dreams where you wake up thinking they’re real only to be disappointed.
I saw a video once where a lady found one all curled up in the open in a forest. She just picked it up and brought it home. She and her mate pulled tons of ticks off of it. Yeah, why doesn’t that kind of thing ever happen to me?
Yeah, looks like a Banana. Can we get some pics out in some natural sunlight? Better shots of the “sores”?
Make sure your husbandry is spot on. I’d let it settle in for a 1-2 weeks before trying to feed.
In the meantime, do tons of research. There’s tons of great YouTube BP content out there. Researching alone can be a hobby.
Better picture would be needed to tell more. But do to the lack of black spots, i would say it probably isn’t a banana. Can’t tell anything else without better pictures.
The damage will probably heal over after several sheds. But a vet visit would still be wise to do. At least for any health issues and probably some cautionary shots.
I would not feed or handle for at least a week since it has been in the new housing. This way it wont be as stressed. I would try live feeding since you have no idea if it ever had f/t. Start with small rat. It can take bigger but you just want to get it started and something in it. But don’t push it to eat or keep trying over and over again. Just drop it in and watch it. If nothing after several minutes, m then remove it and try again the following week.
I wouldn’t go to far in either direction for temp and humidity. Until you find out more and it gets settled in. I would keep temps around 86 and humidity around 50. Mid range or lower humidity will help if there are any respiratory issues. If you see it starting to shed, then mist to get the humidity up to around 70.
These are the pictures from when I first found her/him. They’re nit great, but at least they’re in sunlight. Don’t want to handle for at least a few more days so these are the best I’ve got for now.
I had the humidity on the high end already, so I’ll try to get some air circulating and knock that down a bit.
Yeah it’s not super thin, it might be dehydrated, and a vet can tell you more. But if it won’t eat, it can probably do a couple weeks without food and not even notice.
Went to the vet yesterday. All of her brown spots are “infections” so we’ve got both an injection we’re doing along her spine and an antiseptic bath we have to do every three days for a few weeks. I was also advised to pull all of her substrate and keep humidity as low as possible for the near future. I’m told she should get all the moisture she needs from the soaks ubekss she starts shedding.
Still hasn’t eaten, I’ve tried two f/t medium rats now and she wouldn’t take either. May try to pick up a small live rat or medium/large live mouse tonight and try that just to make sure.
He says she’s got a long road ahead and still might not make it. But he’s optimistic if we stick with it that she has a chance.
As others have said, I would avoid focusing on eating right now. Also; in her state, if you are insisting on trying to feed please feed a very small meal. I wouldn’t be trying medium rats, as I personally would just work on getting her to recoup for the next few weeks without food. It won’t hurt it at all to not eat.
My main worry is that I don’t know how long she hasn’t eaten, aside from the ~11 days I’ve had her. It could have been the day before I found her, or weeks before that. What are some signs I should look for for truly being concerned about eating?
The body condition. The snake is not in any way underweight. You would be surprised how long snakes can go without eating. I had a male once who didn’t eat for over a year. Just keep an eye on its weight. If you start seeing significant decreases, then sure be worried. But focus on healing it for now, imo.
Especially with extent of some of those sores, she probably feels miserable. They can really take a beating before they start showing signs of weakness or infection. So I doubt she’d be hungry with her skin in that state.
As Nathan said, her body condition looks good.
As long as she’s hydrated and you can get this infection under control, she’ll start eating when she’s ready.
So glad you found this baby before she could get any worse. Thank you so much for getting her to a vet so quickly as well.
That makes me feel much better. I’ll keep an eye on weight and not get too worried about food. She’s just a hair over 4’ and about 1400 grams. Is that average or a little low for that length would you say?
It’s hard to say a weight based on length, as all snakes differ; but I would say based on the pics it looks conditionally okay. To the point that I wouldn’t worry about it eating for a while.
I know it’s a very non-answer, answer, but i think it looks healthy weight wise
Best of luck! So glad she’s in caring hands. And yeah she could probably go quite a long time without eating. It feels weird when we’re used to dogs and cats, but snakes will just… clam up for a month or two at some times for varying reasons and ball pythons are notorious for being able to just refuse food for months without taking any loss.
Yeah, as others have said, don’t be too concerned with getting her to feed immediately, work on getting her healed up since her body condition, weight-wise, looks good. Her infection could actually be stressing her out to the point of her not wanting to eat.
You won’t have to weigh her daily to determine if she’s dropping weight due to not eating. Maybe once a week is what I would do. Less handling == less stress. But you will have to handle her to administer meds and check her infection progression, of course.
I wonder if her previous owner dumped her because of the infection. There are some people out there that should not be keeping because they can’t afford the possible vet bills.
Again, i will backup the others on eating. I had one that went a year without, took 4 meals (very small), then 2 still small meals, then stopped again for several months. Now, it is a pig again. It lost half of its weight diring the year. It was gradual, so i did not panic too much. It’s hard not to panic when you see something not eating for that long.
I just went through about $12k in dog chemo over 16 sessions for my Border Collie. I was pretty nervous when the vet told me they’d “get a quote together for me to approve” for the BP after checking her out.
They came back with a quote for $173. Including the visit. Meds, syringes, showing me how to give her the injections, everything. Actually ended up charging me about $145 by the time I got to check out. Can’t recommend Animal Hospital of Collin County enough if anyone is in the North Dallas, TX area.
