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So your snake has regurged it's meal, now what!
This question comes up often
enough I decided to create a care sheet that specifically address
regurge and what to do afterwards.
Step 1)
And I cannot emphasize this more - THE VERY FIRST STEP is to check
and VERIFY your temps and humidity. The point is the most
common reason for a baby snake to regurge is the temps are
wrong or it's getting dehydrated from humidity levels too low -
PERIOD!! If you do not check/verify/correct any temp or
humidity level issues prior to proceeding you will not be helping
your snake get past the issue. Temps for a baby should be
around 75 - 80 degrees and humidity should be near 100%. I
often tell people that sheds will tell the story of humidity levels,
if shedding fine - humidity is fine. But with babies there may
not be the time to wait and see how it's shedding. Also,
stress can cause regurges so look for/eliminate things like high
traffic around the enclosure, dogs/cats near the enclosure etc.
Step 2)
WAIT to feed again. A regurge ban cause two
kinds of damage to the digestive system. First the regurge can
cause damage to the esophagus from the very caustic stomach acids.
Second, the bacterial levels in the digestive system can also be
lost with the regurge. If food is introduced into the
digestive system too soon it will just come back up again causing
even more damage. or a first time regurge I suggest skipping
one entire meal cycle. Babies should be fed weekly so that
would mean two weeks between the regurged meal and the next meal.
If this is a chronic regurge, ie multiple sequential regurges,
waiting an additional week (three weeks) or even four total weeks
would be a good idea.
Step 3)
In addition to waiting, also
feed the next prey item at 1/2 of normal size. Even smaller if
you think the previous meal(s) may have been too large to begin with. One additional
recommendation is to feed hairless prey if possible as pinkies
are easier to digest. he intention is to get them meal to pass
all the way through. Better to not be well fed and keep it
down for the recovery period,
Step 4)
Repeat extended timing and smaller size prey. Slowly bring
size of prey and interval back to normal.
Additional recovery aids
- There are two products I have read about but not yet used so
cannot give either one my full support but they should help.
Both are supplements that provide a bacterial load to the digestive
system to help replenish the bacteria lost in regurge. They are NutriBAC (advertized on beanfarm.com as a
reptile specific product) or BENE-BAC plus (Found on multiple pet
sites for "Birds and Reptiles")
Hope this helps!
Dave Colling,
Rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com
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