FIRST PROBLEM WITH SNAKE PLEASE HELP ASAP

[CHERYLV]

I just wanted to say thank you for the help. She did eat.Doug you were alot of hel and  I Appriciate all the help. Lori This is my first snake and it is not even mine. If you did not get to read that part my friend asked me to keep it while he is overe seas being a marine. I was asking questions because I would like to be better informed  but your comments are very confusing with all of the abbreviations. I did not know what you were saying half of the time. I really appriciate the help but you need to remember that not all of us know all the abbriviations and the lingo of snakes that is why we are asking. thank you agian Doug and Lori

Ok I already know that I do not know all that I should about Boa's but I have had my frineds snake for 4 months now and it has been soooo great until last week............... My friend is a marine and had to go over seas and left his snake with me... I knew nothing about snakes and I think that I have been doing a very good job so far (at least it hasnt died) She has shed 3 times and grown 1 foot she has always seemed very happy until last week it was time to feed her but when I put the mice in she did not seem interested. Everyday for the last week I have been putting one mouse in for about an hour but she still has no interest. I know that these are the correct size mice because they are the same size that she has been eating for the last couple of months but it usually only takes her about 30 mins to eat all 3. I think shee might be shedding again will this affect her eating and why??? HER INFO 5 ft long she has a 3'x2'x3' glass cage I have a heat lamp on her with a reptial bulb the temp is always between 85 and 95 degrees and she always has plenty of water.SHe is a red tailed boa if this makes a diff.
QUESTIONS ??? why does she go under the bark???? I went in the pet store and their red tail was in the water dish curled up mine never does why??? is she supposed to??? do they like the water??? how do you check the humidity??? Thank you in advance for any help you provide!!!cherylv

[Doug]

Re: FIRST PROBLEM WITH SNAKE PLEASE HELP ASAP

HI,
And welcome, your  an angel for taking on this project. But here's the truth. Your cage maybe alittle to dry for that boa, and lights for heat can cause stress, and if you turn the light off
at night the boa can become I'll from Resp Infection.
SO lets start with the basics. You need a book to cover all the information you need to keep boa's or a handy care sheet Clay has one of the best Ive seen for Novice and more experienced Boa keeper, I would like to reccomend you either down load it in adobe format or you can print the care sheet as I did its about 15 pages... This could be the most important thing you do for that boa. Here's a short cut.
[ftp]http://www.redtailboas.com/general_care/general_care.html[/ftp]
Another very serious problem is your keeping you boa in a tank that creates all kinds of problems for you here's a shortcut to a fix I did for some 40 critter tanks. There's many ways to fix the problem this one worked for me and was the least expensive.
The post is called the problems with a forty critter tank
[ftp]http://www.redtailboas.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=board7&action=display&num=10 38532033[/ftp]
Start with the care sheets learn some basic facts, you are trying to keep a tropical rain forest animal in your home and thats why it can be a bit tricky, the reason your having problems is proably due to the weather changing, my humidty in the home has dropped to 26% since we lit the gas furnace, and I have three fish tanks and a humidifier in the bedroom so I can breathe at nite, Boa's like around 50-60% and more with that shed coming on.
  Read the care sheets look over my fixes for that fish tank,
Your gonna be an expert in no time and will be pointing out your boy friends errors in his ways keeping that snake. >.  hehe ;D
  doug
psps tell you marine that an ex-corpsman showed you the way, some of my favorite buds are marines heck I even trained with them at camp le-june ,.And stil have a few friends in the area .

 

[LORI]

Re: FIRST PROBLEM WITH SNAKE PLEASE HELP ASAP

ARGHHH lost the reply before done again here.....CLAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!

ANYWAYS.. For the short version of what i was saying..
There are too many issues present with your snake's husbandry that need attention..
First, your temps are too high imo. Take them down to like 78/82 cool and 85/88 high. This is why the snake is hiding under the substrate btw.

Feeding : The snake is basically being straved by being fed mice and not rats which are more nutritional for it. Feed by the girth ruling also. A 5' Boa should be feeding on at least large rats also. Feed either f/k or f/t also. Feed in a separate place like a tote than the cage. Basically , the snake could ingest some substrate and that will lead to mR at some point.
Also sounds like your feeding live. take a look at this page here...
http://www.koalaskritters.net/livefeeding.html
That's one of my pages btw.

[LORI]

Re: FIRST PROBLEM WITH SNAKE PLEASE HELP ASAP

For feeding also.. You really need to slow down how often you are offering prey to the snake too. The gut flora needs time to replenish or you are going to cause other health issues for the snake even. The snake prolly needs weight put on it so go with this in feeding regime...
1 correct sized prey...7 days later 2 correct sized prey...10 days later 1 correct sized prey...7 days later 2 correct sized prey...
keep going with that schedule to put the weight onto the snake in a healthy manner.

Also if you are offering prey cuz she did not eat like that often..Then do NOT do that. You could stress the snake out by doing this and that will lead to other health problems also.

Shedding does affect eating habits also btw. Most snakes go off feeding when they are in blue. Once shed, they will eat again though.
Also a 5' snake that has shed 3 times in the last 4 months IMO is having a reason to be doing such most likely that needs to be addressed. Try checking for mites to start out with. They will throw a snake into sheds this often or more often even.

Not all snakes will go and soak themselves. Some do that prior to shedding and others will do it cuz they have mites to kill them off. I wouldn't worry about the snake not soaking itself unless you see a reason that it should be.
As for the humidity.. get yourself a humidity gauge at a pet store and put it in the cage.

[LORI]

Re: FIRST PROBLEM WITH SNAKE PLEASE HELP ASAP

FYI.. The humidity should be in the area of 55-65%