Help - My new boa is not keeping meals down!

[AvivaYael]

Hi - I'm new to this forum and I'm hoping there may be some people in this forum who are experienced enough to lend any advice.

I've had smaller snakes for years and recently got my first Boa. It's a Mexican BCI Dwarf Locality (Tarahumara). He was 7 months when I got him. I ordered a bunch of books and joined a few forums and gained as much info as I could. I set up his tank before he arrived. I have the lower temps set to around 80 and the warm side set to around 86. I strive to keep humidity at 60%.

A week after I had the tank setup he arrived. He was shipped from the breeder via FedEx. He arrived healthy looking and active. I had learned that it was best practice to leave him alone for two weeks in his new environment, so I did. I fed him 2 weeks after he arrived. The breeder was feeding him small mice. I had guessed that a baby rat would be the same size and I had heard rats are healthier. We did not touch him for 48 hours after feeding. He was fed on Wednesday, March 23rd. We took him out Friday for 15 minutes and held him gently. We took him out again Sunday for 10 minutes or so.

He regurgitated Monday some time. His behavior seemed normal otherwise. Since he ate he had been mostly hanging out in his hide. I noticed him out once or twice which has been the usual since I got him.

I posted in the forums I signed up with to see if anyone could offer me advice. They told me to wait a week and try feeding him something smaller.

So I followed everyone’s advice, waited till the following Monday (which would be April 4th) and gave him a small mouse (fuzzy?). We actually measured his girth this time and measured the mouse. We came to the conclusion the baby rat we gave the first time might have been too big. We didn’t measure the first time - just kind of eyeballed it. So this time, the mouse we gave was clearly smaller then his girth. We thawed it in warm water for 1/2 hour. He struck, he ate and the next morning it was sitting in his water bowl!!!

I reposted at the other forum and no one seemed able to offer further advice. Someone said perhaps I should try this forum b/c there are so many knowledgeable people here.

I have e-mailed the breeder I received my boa from, but have not heard back from him.

So - I'm praying someone here can point me in the right direction. I don't want to be an alarmist and run to my vet who will not be able to tell me anything helpful without a fecal anyway. I'm too inexperienced with boas to know what to do. None of the books that I've found talk about what to do if they regurgitate.

Please - Any help would be appreciated. The guy who recommended this site asked me to mention using Benebac. He said there may be someone here who would know if it were appropriate to use in this instance as of yet.

Thanks!
Aviva

	Boa Constrictor Imperator Boa Constrictor (Boa constrictor imperator). Most common is the Colombian Boa.

[SoberGuy]

Aviva - You have certainly come to the right forum. First, welcome to RTB!

What size tank are you keeping him in? Sounds like the temps and humidity are ok, though some may suggest upping the warm side to about 88, and lowering the humidity to about 55%. I can't see either of those small adjustments causing a regurge. The more experienced guys will have more to offer. Good luck, and just be patient!

	regurgitate Throw up. Reptiles will regurge when they feel they are in danger or if they have some sort of health issue. If your reptile has regurgitated his/her food please seek help!

[pathfinder36]

It sounds like you've done everything right, so I'd have to say it's time for a vet visit. It's likely that your new boa has some intestinal parasites. JuliusSqueezer is the local authority on Benebac, so I'd PM him in regards to that. As for vets, you need to find an EXPERIENCED reptile vet. A lot of vets will say they do reptiles, but really don't know jack about them. They often perscribe lethal doses of medication to boas to young to handle it for an issue that didn't even exist in the first place. In other words, do some research before choosing a vet.

[pathfinder36]

Actually, here you go:

Originally Posted by JuliusSqueezer

YaH...I would wait 10 to 14 days to feed again and definatly a very undersized meal or 2 ..or 3 for the next few feedings. For awhile, you aren't feeding the snake so much as reconditioning the gut flora. Some probiotics like benebac or nutribac might also be in order. Because your snake seems to have had quite a buildup of backed up poop, it's a fairly reasonable guess that this all happened because too many meals were fed between poops. Never feed a 4th meal if you have fed 3 times and no poop. If you aren't handling this snake much, those perfect ideal temps running 24/7 could be the problem. Snakes tend to find a comfy spot and veg out when such ideal conditions are fulltime. A simple 5 degree night drop will get them moving around daily to thermoregulate and at the same time, this extra movement will get their bowels more active. How often are you feeding? If you are feeding weekly, this is also a large part of why this happened. It's possibly not any one single thing but more about a combination of things. It happens though. You have kids or pets...they get sick.

Use the search button for "regurge". You may get some good info there.

[pathfinder36]

More JS advice... this is exactly what you're looking for:

"This going to be a long read...maybe even a novel but this one post may answer a LOT of questions, problems etc...Please read on

There have been many topics on...
1- My "insert any reptile here" won't eat
2- My "insert any reptile here" puked
3- My "insert any reptile here" bloats up after it eats and lays on it's side

In a great many of these cases ...most actually, you can blame parasite, stress, dehydration, overfeeding or improper heating under or especially OVER). But even after a good worming or otherwise correcting the issue(s) the problem may remain. Why? Any of these things can and will cause a reduction or total wipe out of the animals gut flora. What is gut flora? In order for any animal (including yourself) to digest food, BILLIONS of bacteria must inhabit the gastrointestinal tract. Without the bacteria helping to break down the food, it will spoil and excess gasses will form. If this happens, a very lucky animal will have the wherewithall to puke it up. Others may parish. MOST won't even bother to eat because they KNOW somehow that they can't properly digest it. Overfeeding whether too large or too frequent causes a huge depletion of natural gut flora. It also put's an unmanageable growth ratio on organs v/s body and will cause premature death. Any old boa breeder can tell you (whether they will or not may vary) that powerfed breeder boas seldom live past 5 -6 years.

Ok now what? How do I fix ithis?

For many years, I have used Yogurt to correct this with varied success but mostly fairly good. Yogurt is chocked full of cultured beneficial bacteria.

BUT...then I ran into a couple of hard cases. Corallus (tree boas) are delicate as we all know and a couple of years ago, I took in a couple of rescue w/c emeralds. One wouldn't eat. The other would eat, bloat and puke. Yogurt did not help either and they both died. I even tube fed the nonfeeder and because the gut flora wasn't up to par probably killed him quicker than starvation would have. A little over a year ago, I bought what may be the only piebald amazon tree boa in captivity. I have heard a few reports where someone "used to have one" or maybe they saw one somewhere...but I can't find another one anywhere. She is a wild caught adult....very stressed and has refused food for a year now regardless of how offered. You can see all her bones and she has brought me much agony as I am sure I have caused her some too trying to get her up to speed. Yogurt has done nothing for her. I have been offering her various types of food once a month for the whole year and tube feeding her once or twice a month as far away from food offering time as I can schedule it. She is constantly dehydrating and having bad shed after bad shed. I KNOW her gutr flora has to be shot...I am extremely concerned about renal failure also because of all this.....THEN, if that's not enough, my 2 oldest emeralds start bloating and puking just like ther rescue female NL emerald that died a year ago was doing...If any of you know me at all, you know how much I love Esmarelda and Emilio and how proud I am of my pied amazon and how much I want her to pull through....but I gotta tell you, Those two emeralds are family. If anything happens to them because of something I did or did not do....I won't be any fun to be around for a very long time.

SO....with my 3 closest to my heart snakes facing premature death....I went into hardcore research mode and learned about bene-bac and other products like it (probiotics). Nutri-bac has some rave reviews too but I couldn't find any local and ended up buying benebac. I should also mention that the problem with my emeralds stemmed from me using crappy petstore dial thermometers. I knew better but the cages were set up identical and they both showed the same temp within a degree...how could two be wrong the same exact amount? I dunno but they were. Nicole Russel sent me a nice PE-2 laser guided temp gun for my birthday (Thanks again Nicole) That's when I found that the spot my emerald cages and a few of my amazon cages were reading 83 were actually 90-91 freakin degrees. Sheeze...I can't believe they aren't all dead....so back to bene-bac. This is how I used it and it worked! I have to give credit to Danny Mendez from Urban Jungles. I used his writings more than anyone elses on this subject to figure out a treatment plan.

If your reptile pukes. they will usually drink a lot of water right away. This is good because puking dehydrates them. Unfortunatly when they puke up a rat or something, they also puke up most of their gut flora. If you don't see them drinking shortly after puking, you may need to tube feed them some water or preferably some pedialyte

From here out a great deal of patience is crucial ! And you can not feed your snake for quite awhile to make this work but the payoff is grand!

For any boid:
Wait one full week and give 2 grams/kg of benebac NO FOOD till the 3rd dose 3 weeks later!. Really huge snakes I would give 5-6 grams just to get it down there. It's a thick green paste and it's not easy to get them to swallow it. As long as some gets down there though you are in good shape. It's alive and it multiplies. One gram has 10 million viable colony forming units.

Do this again every week for a total of 6 doses. On the 3rd week along with the 3rd dose...you can offer a very very small meal. Nourishment is not a goal here people. Conditioning the gastrointestinal tract is the goal. If it's a 6 foot boa, feed it a small weaned rat. If it's an adult emerald tree boa, feed it a pink rat. THINK SMALL! It is very important that this meal does not cause any bloating or regurge and in all actuality, you aren't feeding the snake. You are feeding the bacteria inside the snake.

Continue feeding very small meals every other dose ending on that 6th week. then VERY GRADUALLY start increasing the prey size back to normal

For Colubrids, pitvipers and elapids.... fast metabolisms, fast recovery. give them a dose 3-4 days after puking if they puked or asap for any other problems...wait a week ...dose and feed a small meal...go ahead and keep them on the same feeding schedule just keep it small and get 3-4 doses of benebac down a week apart. for most 1/2 gram to a gram is more than plenty. then gradually return to normal sized prey but not as gradual as you will with boids.

bug eating Lizards...dose and feed dose and feed....just keep feeding them normal ...keep checking for worms ...worm as needed...

monitors, I would find a good herp vet. A non feeding monitor has some serious issues. impaction maybe? huge parasite load? A puking monitior? what could possibly make a monitor puke? You probably would miss that anyway because they will re-eat it lol....I have very limited monitor experience so I really don't have much to offer here.

Bene-bac and Nutri-bac are brand names of Probiotics (opposite of antibiotics). There are many others. Some even come in powdered form.


How are my snakes doing now?

Esmarelda and Emilio are doing great. They have held down their little pink rats and beneback with no bloating. I fhave increased from pink to fuzzy to hopper rats and they ate 3 nights ago and are curled up happily asleep right now with no bloating or sign of trouble. They were weird. The both bloated at the same time and puked within minutes of each other and are in seperate cages. They also always poop within minutes of each other. Might have something to do with same size and species...identical cages and identical feeding schedule.

Spot, my piebald wasn't so easy. Easy enough to dose but I had to puree pink rats, benebac, egg yolk, pedyalite and Vitamin B12 in a blender and tube feed her. BUT...now that she has finished her benebac doses, I left her all night with a f/t fuzzy rat last night and I am very excited to report that she ate it! GO SPOT GO!

Here is what Bene-bac looks like. Trust me on this one guys. This may very well be the best 12 bucks you have ever spent. I would have paid anything I had or could could get if I had to to save these snakes."

[SoberGuy]

Good find, Path. Putting a rat in blender......ick. Thank god for JS.

[JuliusSqueezer]

Oh cool...I already responded...kinda lol. I would definatly get this snake checked for parasites. Worms are bad. Worms make snake go bleauh. "Bleauh" smells bad and quickly dehydrates your snake to death. DO NOT let your vet deworm this snake untill he gets some fluids down. Worm meds also dehydrate snakes and feeding a snake that just puked any worm meds without properly rehydrating it...well, it's kinder to just whack the poor snake with a hammer than to suck what little juice it has left out. Once it's rid of the worm problem (if that's the problem) please consider the probiotics treatment to replentish the gut flora to healthy levels. Once you resume feeding, it is very important to start out very small. In your case, ONE fuzzy mouse every 7-10 days for a few weeks and then gradually increase size but don't ever feed it anything that is larger around than the snake is at it's fattest point. Are you feeding frozen thawed? It's good if you are and I highly encourage it but make sure your rodents are not freezer burned and are properly thawed. If anything is left frozen or too cool inside, this will often cause regurge. Gently squeeze the thawed rat's head and feel for any coolness to come through. the brain is the last thing to thaw usually because of the skull. Once the head is warm when you squeeze it, feel the belly and make sure it's all sloshy inside and warm as well. Then go say 45 hail marys for desecration of rodent corpse forgiveness if you are catholic. I'm not catholic so I don't have to do that crap.

[SoberGuy]

Originally Posted by JuliusSqueezer

Then go say 45 hail marys for desecration of rodent corpse forgiveness if you are catholic. I'm not catholic so I don't have to do that crap.

LMAO It's great to not be religious. I hope that doesn't incite a riot.

[Ghroller]

No it shouldn't he didn't say venomoid anywhere

	Venomoid Venomoid surgery is the removal of venom glands. It is an operation to alter the functions of a snake, not an operation aimed at altering it's appearance. The measurable and desired effect is that the snake no longer produces venom.