Garter snake sick from giving birth?

[Bothriechis schlegelii]

Sirtalis has been "grouchy" ever since she gave birth to 8 little ones. She's never striked at me before, and today when I fed her, she didn't really strike at me, but she just sort of went towards my hand with her mouth open, but it was definitely to bite me. She doesn't move as much as she did when she was gravid, either. She just sits in one place, and when she does move, she just pokes around, really slow. She used to zoom by and go crazy. When I tried to pick her up, that's when she tried to bite me. It seemed like I was hurting her, but I was barely doing anything, I didn't even have her up yet. Also, I have her a worm, and she wouldn't even sniff it. The worm literally crawled over her and she didn't bother touching it. She usually just devours her food as soon as she sees it move!

Another thing, I think her mouth is sore, too. She sometimes opens one side of her mouth and closes it (sort of like chewing). Today, when I looked at her when she was in her hide, her mouth was a little tiny bit open.

[guidofatherof5]

Give us some history on her and her care(food/s, substrate, heat, water. enclosure size, etc)
What species?

How are the babies doing and how long ago did she have them?

[Bothriechis schlegelii]

She's WC. She has always slithered around her tank pretty fast all the time, and you know, the usual behavior. It's a Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis (Eastern garter).

Continued in next post, phone issues.

[d_virginiana]

Is there any swelling in the vent area? Is the lower third of her body swollen in any way? The first thing I think of when I hear about a snake being lethargic is a potential infection.
Without more info it's impossible to say anything else...

[chris-uk]

How long ago that she gave birth is important.

First thoughts are infection, or possibly that there's some complications from the birthing and she has either not given birth to all the young she was carrying or the young she delivered damaged her internally on the way out. I'm guessing here that snakes are like any animal and parturition can lead to complications...

[Bothriechis schlegelii]

I feed her 3 worms per week (going to change that to 1 pinkie per week). Her tank is 5g (going to soon upgrade to at least 20g), with reptile aspen shavings for substrate, a half log style hide and a (cleaned) styrofoam worm container filled 3/4 full for a water dish. She used to have a regular bulb in a clamp lamp fixture sitting on her mesh screen lid, but I removed it. However, I removed it 2-3 weeks before she gave birth, and she didn't show any signs of sickness until after she gave birth.

She had 8 babies on the 23rd of this month. Garters can have over 40 babies, which makes me wonder if she let them all out. If she still is gravid with a couple more babies, would they still be alive? Hopefully IF there are more, they retained their yolk sack, or something that would have kept them alive. The babies are doing great so far, no stillborns, none died, and I'll start feeding them worm pieces on the 28th (5 days after birth)

Sorry about the last post, my phone wasn't cooperating and I couldn't finish the post.

[chris-uk]

What does she weigh? Smaller females probably won't drop large litters.
Can you feel any lumps in the lower body?

[ConcinusMan]

On the one hand I would say eating aggressively after dropping dropping babies is a good sign. The faster she fills back out the better. On the other hand, the rest doesn't sound that great. Snakes shouldn't be sitting slackjawed /w mouth open when at rest, for any reason.

At any rate having babies is hard on them and there's plenty that can go wrong. It wouldn't be unusual to lose a female in the days following a birthing. Sometimes they just slide downhill and never recover body mass or never resume eating, particularly females that quit eating weeks before the birth. Sometimes they have babies at great risk to themselves and complications ensue, babies/infertile eggs, etc, aren't passed and in those cases they die later of septicemia.

Only a vet / blood test can rule out septicemia but as was said you can sometimes detect something still in there by feeling for lumps. If that's what it is they usually stop eating and die pretty quickly but sometimes eat fine and die unexpectedly.

Your case could just be she isn't feeling to to par yet but really they should be back to their old self in a week or two and filled back out within 2-4 weeks. Worms aren't going to cut it. They're mostly water and a few worms per week is usually just enough to keep a small snake from starving to death. She needs something a lot more substantial than that.

If she doesn't resume aggressive eating of substantial items (whole fish, rodents, etc) within a week of having them, and is refusing/ignoring food, still looks "caved in", etc. that's not a good sign at all. I don't even see a 5 gallon being big enough for even the smallest breeding age female and it's very difficult to provide a proper temperature gradient in something that small. Should be low to mid 70's with an isolated spot near 90 F big enough for her to coil on/under. If a girl is going to get infections, RI's, etc. it's going to happen while they are gravid or just gave birth, and the temperature gradient/environment isn't right.

At any given time she should have the option to cool down to 70 F or warm up to 90 F at will. Without that, she's at high risk of complications, infections, RI, etc.

[Bothriechis schlegelii]

She isn't eating. I gave her a worm yesterday and she didn't even bother sniffing it. It literally crawled over her. And I feed her frogs every now and then (she's WC, so I'm not worried about parasites).

[chris-uk]

Good point on the food Richard. My girls that are relevant big enough to breed would be snapping at my fingers if I was only feeding them three worms a week, or one pinky.

I still think it would be useful to have an idea of this girl's weight.