Milking a Borneo or Blood Python.

marvelfreak · 10-22-11, 02:57 PM

This is a must read for all Borneo Short Tail or Blood Python owners.
So my Borneo as gone 11 months with out crapping. So i was looking for info on what to do.
Then the other day on another forum there was a girl with a Blood with the same problem. It had gone 10 months without pooping. She was told to soak it in warm water. She had been doing it 3 times a week for three months didn't help. She was asked if the snake was eating regularly and active. She said yes. Same as mine.

She was told to make sure the water was deep enough it had to swim this would help break it up. She tried it and it didn't work.
Then she was asked if she had tried milking it. Everyone was like what the hell. The guy explain you soak the snake in warm water for a bit. Then you massage the belly towards the rear in. You will feel hard little bumps. This are dried urine. Massage helps break it lose. You slow push them towards the rear and very carefully work it out.

So today i gave it a try. I could not believe how much dry urine came out of her. It took and while but i believe i got it all work out of her. So hopefully she will finally be able to poop for the first time in months. I was lucky and she just rested her head on my arm and let me do it. I thought i would get tagged for sure. I believe this is why she 's been cranky lately.

Borneo and Bloods have the slowest metabolism of any snake so has they get older the don't poop as much. Most adults only go once every 3 to 4 months. So some times it get's build up in them and backs up. This is why it's important to get records of how often they go. Any longer than 5 months then you should start soaking or letting them swim a couple times a week to help work it lose. So you hopefully don't have to milk them to get it out.

I took before and after pictures. The last pic is of all the dry urine that came out. It might not look like it, but the two big one were 4 to 5 inches long and as big around as a half dollar.

Before she look like she is going to burst. She was so fat her color looked faded.
Malaysian Bloods 103.jpg
The after she has some of her color back.
Malaysian Bloods 104.jpg
These were bigger than they look. There was actually three more big ones that aren't in the picture.
Malaysian Bloods 105.jpg

Gungirl · 10-22-11, 03:18 PM

Awww I'm so happy you where able to help your girl out, I bet she was thankful!

marvelfreak · 10-22-11, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gungirl

Awww I'm so happy you where able to help your girl out, I bet she was thankful!

She seemed very relived and relax after i was done. She actually didn't mine being held. Lately she hasn't wanted to be picked up at all. After she sat on my lap and crawled all over.

stephanbakir · 10-22-11, 04:02 PM

Learn something new every day

alessia55 · 10-22-11, 04:27 PM

Interesting. Never heard of "milking" a snake before! Learning all the time here

RegenerationRep · 10-22-11, 05:28 PM

This method also works for impacted beardies and leopard geckos.

Thanks for sharing. She looks great and I'm glad to hear shes okay.

marvelfreak · 10-23-11, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RegenerationRep

This method also works for impacted beardies and leopard geckos.

Thanks for sharing. She looks great and I'm glad to hear shes okay.

I was talking to my rat guy this morning and he said he had to do it with a impacted Dumeril Boa before. Plus he helped another guy do it with a impacted Black Blood. After hearing about it i figure i give it a try, if it didn't work next i was going to take her to the Vet. This was a lot cheaper and wasn't hard to do at all.

ZARADOZIA · 10-23-11, 08:39 AM

Thanks for posting! I would like to get a Borneo next and this will certainly come in handy!

unknownclown · 10-25-11, 11:07 AM

What a beautiful snake! I will have to remember this with my sumatran bloods. Thanks for the heads up

marvelfreak · 10-25-11, 06:46 PM

I just wished some one else would have been here then i could have video taped it. So you could all see first hand how to do it. It was a lot easier than i thought it would be. I have own snake for over 19 years and i am still learn knew things all the time. This was something once i tried it and seen it worked i just had to share.

**millertime89** · 10-25-11, 10:28 PM

if you've got a camera that shoots video, you can get a small tripod for like 20 bucks.

jaleely · 10-25-11, 11:14 PM

I thought "milking" a snake wasn't making them poop, but getting venom from the venomous snakes...?

CDN_Blood · 10-26-11, 04:10 AM

I suppose I've been very lucky. In 24 years of keeping pythons and boas I've never had this problem. My oldest Blood just turned 10 years old this month and that's how long I've had him, but have never had this issue.

I can't help but wonder if it's partly due to feeding schedules. I've never used a 'schedule' for feeding in all the years I've been keeping boids - I find it too unnatural, personally.

One of my snakes is a Solomon Island Tree Boa, and when she arrived she was quite underweight, so I was giving her substantial meals (3-4 mice per meal which is a lot for her size) for the first month or two. Since these snakes are quite slender and they'd never really eat that much per sitting in their natural environment, she was often unable to pass the fur from such a large meal and would regurgitate it. That's not terribly uncommon for an arboreal that has consumed too many furred animals, but it shows something...

When considering feeding, one must weigh Activity vs. Intake, and we all know Bloods aren't the most active snakes in the group, so using a regular feeding schedule often leads to obesity in Bloods, which only shortens their lives and is very unhealthy for anything (warm or cold-blooded).

If we compound a constant food supply with not enough activity, I could easily imagine entirely too much uric acid (the white matter seen in the images, which is comprised of bone matter, teeth and claws that have been digested) building-up and causing this problem.

I'm only guessing at this, but I've seen a lot of people who use the scheduled feeding method experience it over the past couple of decades, yet have never seen anyone who opts for a more natural feeding approach have that problem, so when I do the math I'm lead to this conclusion. Again, it's not affirmative, I'm just guessing at the root of the problem.

If this is indeed the cause, there are 2 simple solutions a body could opt to try and see if it makes a difference. One would be to get the snake out for exercise on a more regular basis, as moving around more helps keep things moving a little easier, as well as ensures better health weight-wise. Another option would be to drop the idea of a feeding on a schedule and try the more natural times-of-plenty mixed with more lean-times for food intake.

Just because Bloods are a heavy-bodied snake doesn't mean they should be fat. In the wild they'd often go for months without eating while they aestivate to avoid the extreme heat, only resurfacing and becoming active again once the constant rains arrived.

Just some food for thought

**lady_bug87** · 10-26-11, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CDN_Blood

I suppose I've been very lucky. In 24 years of keeping pythons and boas I've never had this problem. My oldest Blood just turned 10 years old this month and that's how long I've had him, but have never had this issue.

I can't help but wonder if it's partly due to feeding schedules. I've never used a 'schedule' for feeding in all the years I've been keeping boids - I find it too unnatural, personally.

One of my snakes is a Solomon Island Tree Boa, and when she arrived she was quite underweight, so I was giving her substantial meals (3-4 mice per meal which is a lot for her size) for the first month or two. Since these snakes are quite slender and they'd never really eat that much per sitting in their natural environment, she was often unable to pass the fur from such a large meal and would regurgitate it. That's not terribly uncommon for an arboreal that has consumed too many furred animals, but it shows something...

When considering feeding, one must weigh Activity vs. Intake, and we all know Bloods aren't the most active snakes in the group, so using a regular feeding schedule often leads to obesity in Bloods, which only shortens their lives and is very unhealthy for anything (warm or cold-blooded).

If we compound a constant food supply with not enough activity, I could easily imagine entirely too much uric acid (the white matter seen in the images, which is comprised of bone matter, teeth and claws that have been digested) building-up and causing this problem.

I'm only guessing at this, but I've seen a lot of people who use the scheduled feeding method experience it over the past couple of decades, yet have never seen anyone who opts for a more natural feeding approach have that problem, so when I do the math I'm lead to this conclusion. Again, it's not affirmative, I'm just guessing at the root of the problem.

If this is indeed the cause, there are 2 simple solutions a body could opt to try and see if it makes a difference. One would be to get the snake out for exercise on a more regular basis, as moving around more helps keep things moving a little easier, as well as ensures better health weight-wise. Another option would be to drop the idea of a feeding on a schedule and try the more natural times-of-plenty mixed with more lean-times for food intake.

Just because Bloods are a heavy-bodied snake doesn't mean they should be fat. In the wild they'd often go for months without eating while they aestivate to avoid the extreme heat, only resurfacing and becoming active again once the constant rains arrived.

Just some food for thought

how do you exercise them just let them out to explore?

CDN_Blood · 10-26-11, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lady_bug87

how do you exercise them just let them out to explore?

Yup. The snakes are all in one room (with the exception of one at any time which temporarily resides in a display tank on the main floor of the house, switched often). Their room is escape-proof, so I never need to worry about them getting into trouble up there.

Where Bloods are concerned, letting them lose for any length of time is not as easy as it is for other things such as Carpets, but it's still doable if you understand and know your Bloods