Odd regurge...

[d_virginiana]

So, I found what looked to be a regurgitated partly-digested mouse in the tank two of my males share a few days ago. They're both acting perfectly fine; active, tongue-flicking, energetic when held, but one refused food tonight. Since he's not going into shed or anything, I'm assuming he was probably the one who regurged.

He had eaten multiple mice, but only regurged the one. He did eat slightly more than normal last feeding. Have any of you ever had a snake regurge only part of a meal, and if so did it just seem to be a one-time thing where maybe they had eaten too much or something?

[BLUESIRTALIS]

This can be caused from over eating. Shouldn't be nothing to worry about, but i would offer a smaller meal next time.

[d_virginiana]

That's what I was thinking. The unexplained death of that female a few months back just kind of has me on edge. I don't believe it was anything contagious, but I've been watching those two males (both of them mated with her) like a hawk ever since.

[Albert Clark]

Lora, it certainly can be due to the recent over feeding but you have to be suspicious too! Parasites is what comes to mind with me. Of course it may not be but it has to be one of your differentials. I did have one of my albino female checkereds regurgitate a partially digested mouse about 1 year ago. She was gravid and ate the mouse two days before she delivered 23 scrubs! Not only does certain foods predispose snakes to parasitic overload but stress, captivity in general, and unsanitary conditions also. I know you are on top of all of that but just as a possibility. Hope this helped a bit.

[d_virginiana]

Oh, I had a big parasite scare a couple years ago. Turns out it was a typically mammalian parasite, and only got caught because I refused to let the vet treat for vitamin deficiency (I just knew it wasn't that, but it was a reasonable assumption for the vet to make) before doing a fecal. My best guess is that the store I was buying mice from wasn't freezing them long enough. Stopped buying from there immediately. Luckily it wasn't very contagious and none of my others got it; we were actually more worried about catching it ourselves considering it was mammalian!

If he regurges again I'll probably separate him out and get the vet to do a fecal. Since he's acting like he feels okay, I'm hoping this was just a one-time thing though.

[BLUESIRTALIS]

I might would go ahead and separate him for awhile until you can figure out what's going on. Make sure to keep him hydrated and feed him very small meals maybe a small pink or a nightcrawler for the first and then increase the next meal a little and after a couple of feedings you can go back to his normal feeding schedule. Certain parasites can cause regurgitation, but at this point i'm hoping this was a one time thing caused by over feeding. I have seen this alot due to over eating so it's probably nothing to worry about unless it keeps hapening and then you might need to see a vet. I would just monitor him for now and feed a few smaller meals. Hope this helps!
oh, i had a big parasite scare a couple years ago. Turns out it was a typically mammalian parasite, and only got caught because i refused to let the vet treat for vitamin deficiency (i just knew it wasn't that, but it was a reasonable assumption for the vet to make) before doing a fecal. My best guess is that the store i was buying mice from wasn't freezing them long enough. Stopped buying from there immediately. Luckily it wasn't very contagious and none of my others got it; we were actually more worried about catching it ourselves considering it was mammalian!

If he regurges again i'll probably separate him out and get the vet to do a fecal. Since he's acting like he feels okay, i'm hoping this was just a one-time thing though.

[d_virginiana]

I think another thing that points to him just eating too much is that he only regurged one mouse out of several that he ate. I would think a parasite or infection would cause a regurge of all or most of the meal. He's also my most skittish snake by a long shot, so his cagemate could have startled him and contributed to it as well.

I'm trying to keep handling to a minimum but I've been giving him a good check over about once a day since the regurge, and he seems to feel fine and is VERY energetic when held, which makes me feel better because with both of my females that died (the recent one and the one a couple years ago that never bounced back fully from the parasite issue) lethargy was the only real warning sign.

[Albert Clark]

Well, hopefully its just the overeating and not anything more. Good luck. Keep us updated on any changes.

[d_virginiana]

He ate fine tonight, seemed just as enthused about food as normal. Gave him a slightly smaller meal than usual. I guess I'll know in a day or two if this was a one-time deal or not.

[d_virginiana]

Well, unfortunately I went into my reptile room this morning to find he had regurged again. Again, he only regurged part of the meal, and it didn't seem to have been digested much at all...

I've separated out his cagemate (I felt it would be smarter to remove the healthy one so he wouldn't be exposed to anything any more than he already has), and I'm going to get a fecal done as soon as I can get a passable sample. If the fecal comes back negative and he regurges a third time I will get bloodwork done, but my vet has said that can be risky on something as small as a garter, so I want that to be a last resort.
I may wait a day or two and start just giving him small amounts of nightcrawler. That is easier to digest, and it would help me get a fecal sample sooner.

Considering he again only regurged part of his meal, I'm holding out hope that this is nothing serious and that I just gave him too much to eat right after a regurge. My next suspicion would be parasites (which shouldn't even really be a risk with him considering I get my mice from a reputable dealer). I don't think this is due to an infection either viral or bacterial, as he is still incredibly energetic, tongue flicking, ect. just like normal. If it were that, I'd expect to have noticed some lethargy and listlessness by now.

I am going to be beyond angry if this is something that he caught from the female he was with considering I did everything right in regards to quarantine.

EDIT: I think I may move him to a small 'hospital' setup later tonight with white paper towels as bedding so that I can be sure not to miss any discharge/poo/whatever.

[guidofatherof5]

Sounds good on the move idea. Blood workups require a large amount of blood volume for a garter to give.

[d_virginiana]

Sounds good on the move idea. Blood workups require a large amount of blood volume for a garter to give.

Yeah, I only want to do something like that if the fecal turns up nothing and his condition worsens.

[Albert Clark]

How old is he? And you said this was the second time partial regurge, correct? And you are highly suspicious bc he was in contact with the female who had a sudden inexplicable death? Also this may or may not be due to overeating? OK, Just know that we all hope it is minor and keep us posted. :confused:

[d_virginiana]

How old is he? And you said this was the second time partial regurge, correct? And you are highly suspicious bc he was in contact with the female who had a sudden inexplicable death? Also this may or may not be due to overeating? OK, Just know that we all hope it is minor and keep us posted. :confused:

I think he's roughly 5, since I'm not 100% sure how old he was when I got him.

Yes, this is the second partial regurge.

Yes, I am suspicious because of the female. However, as of yesterday I got some info that at one point she overheated by laying on an unregulated heat pad before she came to me. Given how sensitive garters can be, this gives me hope that she may have suffered internal damage from that incident and not had anything contagious. I initially figured she didn't have anything contagious because she made it through a 90 day QT with no symptoms other than basic stress symptoms (soaking often and eating sporadically), and went from acting perfectly fine to dead in less than five hours (made me think organ failure, which would fit with the heat pad narrative).

I do still have some hope that this is due to overeating and then eating something harder to digest (pinkies) right after. I'm going to test this by just offering him small amounts of nightcrawler at his next feeding. They are the easiest to digest, so if he keeps those down I figure I was right about that.

[Albert Clark]

Oh, ok. Cool. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

[BLUESIRTALIS]

How long did you wait to feed him after the first regurge? What does his feces look like? You know it could be stress from the other male. I have had snakes together for years that all of a sudden would have to be separated due to stress. I hope it's nothing too bad.

[d_virginiana]

After the first regurge, I skipped a week (I feed every five to seven days depending on how well they ate at the last feeding), then fed him again the following week. It was a slightly smaller meal than normal, but tomorrow is feeding day, so I'm going to try either nightcrawler cut into chunks or one pinkie cut into chunks to make it easier on digestion. If he keeps that down, I'm going to work my way slowly back up to normal meals.

I haven't gotten a good look at his feces recently due to lack of food going through his system (lots of urates, but very little if any feces) combined with the fact that he likes to smear his poo around. In the three years I've had him I've rarely seen an in-tact poo because of this; I know it's not really chronically runny or anything because I've actually seen him do it. He'll be pooping, then kind of panic (by far my most high-strung snake) and kind of smear/fling it around running away. I guess he thinks a predator might smell him or something, idk. It's going to be difficult getting a fecal sample from him for sure.

It could be stress from the other male, and I'll look into that (like if he gets better, then gets worse again once his buddy is reintroduced) but I kind of doubt that's the problem. Starting almost immediately when I separated them, the one who regurged has spent all his time hiding (and his buddy has become very skittish and bitey). They're both acting more stressed now that they're solo.

The one who regurged is getting almost worryingly thin looking. He's a very high-energy guy, and I think close to a month of not really getting any food into his system is starting to take a toll on him.

[Albert Clark]

Man , I hope we can get the etiology of this.

[d_virginiana]

Me too. I'm just constantly a mess when something is wrong with one of my babies.

[BLUESIRTALIS]

It could very well be parasites then or a blockage of some sort. Do you feel any lumps in his body at all?

[d_virginiana]

It could very well be parasites then or a blockage of some sort. Do you feel any lumps in his body at all?

I don't feel any lumps. If it was a blockage I would have expected a change in behavior, or lethargy, or something by now (closing in on a month since this started). My number one suspicion is parasites, I just don't know where he could have gotten them from...

If he takes food tonight, I'll feed only one mouse or nightcrawler cut into pieces. If he regurges that, then I think that will pretty definitively point to something other than just eating too much while his system was still recovering from that first regurge.

[d_virginiana]

No luck with getting him to eat tonight. I'll try again in a few days. :(

[Albert Clark]

Maybe it's better that he doesn't eat and has time to give his digestive tract a rest. Maybe just make sure he gets hydrated, if not by drinking ,then by soaking. Soaking in a tepid 50 / 50 mix of pedialite and h2O?

[d_virginiana]

I imagine if he drinks some of the pedialyte mixture it might give him a boost. I may give that a shot over the next few days (I'm familiar with doing pedialyte soaks for frogs, so kind of the same drill). So far no signs of dehydration. Half the time when I'm checking on him, I'll offer him water on his way back in the tank and he'll drink sitting on my hand.

[Albert Clark]

Well, that's cool. As long as you are sure he's getting fluids.

[d_virginiana]

Got some pedialyte, going to try that tonight. Yeah, I was checking on him earlier and he took a nice long drink as I put him back in. He's also been way more active today; I think he got over wondering where his buddy disappeared to.

[d_virginiana]

He just took a nightcrawler. Now to wait and see if he keeps it down. Hopefully I've have some poo to get tested in a couple days and not another regurge.

[d_virginiana]

Okay, so I just checked in his tank and found a glob of what I'm 95% sure is mucous. It was the color of healthy mucous (so not green) and I didn't see any traces of blood when I wiped it up with a paper towel to examine it closer. There were no traces of poo or urates, so I'm assuming it came out of his mouth. When I checked on him he was alert and tongue-flicking.

HOWEVER, I saw absolutely no evidence of regurgitated food. I'm still holding out hope that he'll keep this worm down so I can get a fecal done.

Also, I know an RI is the first thing you think about in regards to mucous, but I'm 100% sure he does not have an RI. He has none of the symptoms of one.

Do you guys think it's possible that mucous has been building up in his system since he's started regurgitating and that's what I'm seeing here? I know it can sometimes build up in the stomach, especially when it's trying to recover from something traumatic, and I think two consecutive regurges would fit the bill for that.

[d_virginiana]

UPDATE: I got paranoid and went back to check the area around the mucous more thoroughly, and found a couple chunks of pretty solid material in it that didn't immediately come up when I wiped it the first time. It wasn't bloody, and it definitely wasn't part of the worm from earlier; far too solid to be that.
Also, I offered him water and he took a nice long drink, so he's staying hydrated.

Do you think it's possible that there's been a blockage in the stomach this whole time that is small enough to let water and small amounts of food through, but not normal meals? That would explain the partial regurgitations instead of entire meals. I'd expect an intestinal blockage to cause infection and lethargy pretty quickly since it traps digested food inside the body, but one in the stomach could just cause regurges and not lead to infection.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the worm stays down and that whatever that solid lump was, it was the source of the problem.

[d_virginiana]

I think I have my fecal sample! I checked him first thing this morning an saw what I thought was probably the regurgitated worm, however there were absolutely no chunks in it whatsoever and when I wiped it onto a towel to get a better look, I saw urates mixed in with it, so I'm pretty sure it's poop. Since those previous regurges were only part of the meal, I think the worm may have just kicked his system into gear again. Sample is currently bagged in my refrigerator in a moist towel waiting for the vet to reopen on Monday.

It was definitely not healthy poop, as it was really watery and not solid at all, but hopefully now I can figure out what's going on.

[Rushthezeppelin]

Best of luck tomorrow. Hopefully there's not parasites. Curious though, since I'm new to this and haven't seen anything specific, what does healthy snake poo look like? Mine has always had little piles that looked kinda like bird poo. Black and/or white in a lump. Also lucky for me it seems I got a garter who does not defecate in their water so that's a plus :D

[d_virginiana]

Best of luck tomorrow. Hopefully there's not parasites. Curious though, since I'm new to this and haven't seen anything specific, what does healthy snake poo look like? Mine has always had little piles that looked kinda like bird poo. Black and/or white in a lump. Also lucky for me it seems I got a garter who does not defecate in their water so that's a plus :D

Thanks, I'm hoping that the solid mass he regurged last time was the source of the problem and not parasites.

Yeah, that sounds about normal. Sometimes fish and especially worms can make the poo a bit runny. Worms are healthy food items though, and once you've had her for awhile you'll figure out the difference between normal poo and an actual problem (it just looks different when something's off; it's hard to describe, but it's always been pretty intuitive for me when something is normal versus unhealthy looking).

As for pooping in the water dish, don't worry; she will.

[d_virginiana]

Fecal came back negative for parasites. He also took another worm yesterday and hasn't regurged it yet. Unless something changes, I'm going to operate under the assumption that the thing he vomited the other night was some sort of obstruction. I'm going to go slow working him back up to normal meals, and once he's eating normally again without problems I'll reintroduce his cagemate.

[guidofatherof5]

Don't be afraid to extend that alone time out. I think a minimum of 60 days clean and eating would be good.

[d_virginiana]

Good idea. I don't think he has anything contagious at this point, but I don't want to stress him either.