Why is she wiggling? 🤔

So today was the first time I’ve ever fed a snake. My ball python ate a small mouse about 5hrs ago. I’m extremely paranoid/worried about her regurgitating for any reason. I’ve checked on her like 3x since then and each time I see her wiggling. Not like active around her enclosure, but in her hide, flexing different parts of her body. Is this normal? Is she just trying to push the mouse along? Think she could still be hungry? Any opinions would be appreciated :slight_smile:

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I have not had any regurges yet, all you can do really is feed and leave her alone. She’s fine no worries mate.

We all did the same thing lol I swear I texted the local breeder I met first every day with similar concerns :joy::joy:

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What you are observing is your snake still being in feed mode which can start hours before feeding and continue hours after feeding.

My advice if you are paranoid about regurgitations, stop checking on her several times after her meal all you are doing is increasing stress when your snake is at it’s most vulnerable (soon after a meal) and that is a great recipe for regurgitation.

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The rule of thumb when feeding a snake is to leave them alone for a full 48 hours after you feed them. No bothering them and not checking on them. If the snake is going to regurgitate it will be because you stress and scare it. Also, how big is your snake? You should move it up to rats asap so you don’t have a mouser on your hands. And it is best to not feed it twice. Increases the chance for it to regurgitate.

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Sounds fine. They’ll wiggle a bit to readjust the food in their tummies, maybe look for more, and also move around to find the perfect spot to digest (thermoregulate).

You’ll know if they regurgitate by smell. Just leave them be for at least 24 hours of no peeking or otherwise disturbing them.

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I have never heard that about multiple prey items and that has definitely not been my (limited) experience, if it’s a smaller rat under 10-12% of their body weight I regularly at least offer multiple prey items. Sometimes they want one, sometimes two, even had them take 3 a couple times (or 0 lately sigh winter). I have yet to have a regurge or any other issues.
I’m going to do some research and see what is up with that though there must be a reason someone out there thinks that.

How big is your BP?

Thanks everyone for putting me at ease. I don’t smell anything funky from her cage, her temp and humidity are fine so I’m just not gonna bother her. :slight_smile:

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So I just weighed her and here it is.
image
I emailed the breeder we got her from to ask what she was eating before we bought her. Waiting for him to get back to us.

I get that that you are worried about regurgitation but you constantly checking on her and trying to lift up the hide to see her would be the biggest reason for her to regurgitate. They do this when being stressed so just feed her and check after a hour or so and she sounds just fine. The wriggling is normal like others have said

If she ever regurgs you’ll smell it

After feeding leave her alone for a day or two. :+1: