Morzan and Homura - Page 5

bigsnakegirl785 · 05-20-16, 10:46 PM

Morzan went blue earlier this week, and shed the other day. I don't have any post-shed pics, but here he is in blue.

bigsnakegirl785 · 05-26-16, 12:45 AM

Homura was giving me the stink eye when I took her out the other night.

I wanted to take these guys out for a photo shoot since the weather has finally warmed back up again, but I literally slept the entire day.

My next day off won't be until next Tuesday, so there won't be too many new pictures from this week.

bigsnakegirl785 · 06-14-16, 10:02 PM

After talking with Dave I had made an attempt to try to bump Morzan up to small hopper mice...it ended in failure.

I gave him his regular-sized fuzzy mouse, waited 7 days and gave him a slightly larger fuzzy that he digested just fine, and then waited 10 days and offered him the largest fuzzy I had, but he ended up regurging 2-3 days later.

As of right now, I am ordering some NutriBAC, and I'll be giving him a pinky mouse next Tuesday or Wednesday. I am thinking I'll probably just have to stick to the small fuzzies for now, which is unfortunate.

I wanted to bump him because he looks very skinny and simply isn't gaining any weight. While empty, he hasn't lost or gained so much as a gram. When you pick him up and look at his belly, his ventral scales kind of hug the tips of his ribs, being concave on the sides and rounded in the very middle. It looks like this even when he's relaxed. I was worried about him slowly starving to death so I wanted to bump his prey size up so he'll be getting the food he needs.

The other day, he actually seemed to have filled out a little, his belly wasn't caved in anywhere and you couldn't see the scales on his side, even if he was clenching his stomach muscles.

I'm not sure if I should try to move him up again once he's recovered, but go much slower this time, or just stick to his regular size.

It just sucks while he's this small, because there's maybe 2 grams of difference between the biggest and smallest fuzzy mouse, so I have very little leeway.

Lefitte · 06-15-16, 01:21 AM

That sucks! I had a similar food issue recently and I thought I was going crazy. I moved both my king and rainboa up to medium mice. Which are bigger for the king and okay for the boa. So I thought fantastic! I bought the three pack to save a few cents right? It's been a month and they're still in the freezer. Went to feed them one night, pulled out the mouse and went "Oh no, I got the wrong size!" So I went to the store to buy the small mice and when I felt them and read the approximate weight of a single I was very confused. I shrugged and figured that must be wrong so I grabbed the medium again, but the singles in case I was wrong. Got home and realized they were called the same thing.. Weighed both. The single mediums were all 15g. The smallest mutlipack medium was 17g. My boa is 143g and 15g was pushing it for both of them. I think the next size down is 10-12g and I just felt like that wasn't quite doing it anymore now that it's warming up to summer and my king's no longer trying to brumate and my boa is reaching his yearling growth spurt.

My hognose has a similar problem. The fuzzies look too big for her tiny body but she's happily up to 3 pinkies at a time. Hate pinkies, can't wait for fuzzies.

Glad to hear that he's filled out. My king decided to reject fuzzies during her first winter and didn't grow at all. Scared the heck out of me. It was my first few months as a snake owner and people kept saying "oh yeah she can take fuzzies now" and "kings are garbage disposals!" and I'm looking at her regurged mouse going "I'm a terrible mother! What am I doing wrong?!" At least you know at least a little bit about what you're doing! I'm confident that he'll be fine with your care.

Snakesitter · 06-15-16, 02:13 PM

I seem to have at least one baby a year with feeding issues. NutriBAC can often help them digest better, as can a *slightly* warmer hot spot. Try both of those and ever so slowly move up in size. Next time you order/buy food, explain your challenge and see if the seller can find you the right custom size of food. Good luck!

bigsnakegirl785 · 06-15-16, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lefitte

That sucks! I had a similar food issue recently and I thought I was going crazy. I moved both my king and rainboa up to medium mice. Which are bigger for the king and okay for the boa. So I thought fantastic! I bought the three pack to save a few cents right? It's been a month and they're still in the freezer. Went to feed them one night, pulled out the mouse and went "Oh no, I got the wrong size!" So I went to the store to buy the small mice and when I felt them and read the approximate weight of a single I was very confused. I shrugged and figured that must be wrong so I grabbed the medium again, but the singles in case I was wrong. Got home and realized they were called the same thing.. Weighed both. The single mediums were all 15g. The smallest mutlipack medium was 17g. My boa is 143g and 15g was pushing it for both of them. I think the next size down is 10-12g and I just felt like that wasn't quite doing it anymore now that it's warming up to summer and my king's no longer trying to brumate and my boa is reaching his yearling growth spurt.

My hognose has a similar problem. The fuzzies look too big for her tiny body but she's happily up to 3 pinkies at a time. Hate pinkies, can't wait for fuzzies.

Glad to hear that he's filled out. My king decided to reject fuzzies during her first winter and didn't grow at all. Scared the heck out of me. It was my first few months as a snake owner and people kept saying "oh yeah she can take fuzzies now" and "kings are garbage disposals!" and I'm looking at her regurged mouse going "I'm a terrible mother! What am I doing wrong?!" At least you know at least a little bit about what you're doing! I'm confident that he'll be fine with your care.

That size is what Big Cheese considers small adult mice, and that's the weight my home-raised mice reach right before they become weaned. lol Both Homura and Sanji are on small adult mice. I'm hoping Sanji gets big enough for jumbos soon but he's nowhere near big enough yet....The jumbos are huge next to his belly. He's not big enough for 2 small adult mice, either, and I really really prefer not doubling up prey anyways. :/

The funny thing is my 18 gram mice are much much smaller than Big Cheese's 18 gram mice. I think they have extra weight because of the milk in their bellies. I either have to separate them from mom a bit sooner or let them cycle out the milk before weighing them. That may not even make a difference though. lol

Morzan is so small and his regurge issues mean I'm not willing to chance giving him 2 mouse pinkies instead of a fuzzy, he'll eat whatever I put in front of him, it's just if it's too big he'll regurge it later. His threshold for prey size is much smaller than average. Sanji was already moved up to hoppers when he was only 5 grams heavier, but fuzzies are the most Morzan can take atm.

It's very strange that he's filled out, there was only two meals since the last time I saw his belly, and he regurged one of them. He's also become a lot more active, he comes out during the night to explore again, and for the first time since getting him, he actually crawled around in my hands. I'm not sure if these are good or bad signs. He's showing no signs of illness, but neither did Guin (beyond the weird stool and regurge). I was thinking of seeing how his next meal goes on Tuesday or Wednesday before deciding whether or not to take him to the vet. He hasn't dropped anything quite so scary as Guin died, but her illness was still rather invisible.

He remains non-bitey/strikey as well, so there's that I guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakesitter

I seem to have at least one baby a year with feeding issues. NutriBAC can often help them digest better, as can a *slightly* warmer hot spot. Try both of those and ever so slowly move up in size. Next time you order/buy food, explain your challenge and see if the seller can find you the right custom size of food. Good luck!

I'll probably wait on getting the custom size until he shows signs of being able to take larger meals. There's very little variation in the weights of fuzzies, so we'd be talking about weight differentials below a gram, which can be caused by food remaining in the gut rather than size.

I'll go ahead separate the mice by weight I guess so I'll have a more exact range to work with. Before, I just picked out the smallest fuzzies in size, but I should be able to get at least 2-3 different weights to work with, separating them by 1 gram intervals.

I'll try those tips and see how it works. I can lay out a plan for review once I have all my fuzzies weighed and separated and I know what I'm working with.

Snakesitter · 06-17-16, 05:04 PM

Good luck, and please let us know how we can help!

bigsnakegirl785 · 06-17-16, 09:16 PM

Well it seems I have fuzzies from 2 grams to 6 grams, so more of a range than I thought I'd have. He's going to get a pinky mouse with NutriBAC for his next two meals, and if he keeps both down I'll offer the 2 gram fuzzies for 2-3 meals, and then move up to the 3 gram fuzzies. I'm hoping I can max out at the 4 gram fuzzies and keep him there for awhile before I try to move him to anything larger again.

How long should I dust his food with NutriBAC? I'm assuming 2 meals should be plenty but I just want to make sure.

If he can stay on the 4 gram fuzzies for awhile, I'll offer him the 5 gram fuzzies until he finishes them off, before offering a 6 gram fuzzy. I think there's 5-8+ 5 gram fuzzies, I'll have to double check, I may just offer him 4-5 of the 5 gram fuzzies if he's got a bunch of them before offering a 6 gram.

Hopefully everything will go well and I won't see any more regurges, and hopefully my next plan will be slow enough he'll be able to take the bigger meals.

Snakesitter · 06-20-16, 02:28 PM

I'd do it for the next month, and repeat every time you increase prey size for that first larger meal.

bigsnakegirl785 · 06-20-16, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snakesitter

I'd do it for the next month, and repeat every time you increase prey size for that first larger meal.

I assume you're referring to the ReptiBAC? I'll be sure to do that, then. Hopefully we'll get him back on track here soon.

Homura continues to do well, I've got some days off soon so maybe I'll take her and a few of the others out for more pics here soon. I recently got her a magnetic plant to cover her hide a bit, and she's been hanging out under it. Haven't seen her climbing on it yet unfortunately.

Snakesitter · 06-21-16, 02:04 PM

RepticBAC or NutriBAC, sorry?

bigsnakegirl785 · 06-21-16, 04:57 PM

NutriBAC, sorry. I somehow got NutriBAC and Reptivite mixed together in my mind

Snakesitter · 06-22-16, 01:55 PM

LOL no worries. I was wondering if I'd missed a new product!

bigsnakegirl785 · 06-23-16, 05:16 PM

Well the NutriBAC took its sweet time getting here, and just got here today. I got expedited shipping and it still took the longest time possible. :/ Still, he's just a couple days late so I'm glad it got here this week.

He didn't want to take it at first, but I scented it by rubbing it on some mice in my little breeding group (they did NOT appreciate that lol) and he took it no problems after that.

I'll be keeping an eye out for any regurges the next couple of days, but hopefully all will go smoothly.

Homura is also doing well. Unfortunately, her feeding day fell on one of my days off so I won't be able to take her out until tomorrow or Monday, depending on how much time I have before work.

Snakesitter · 06-24-16, 02:00 PM

Congrats on a successful feeding, and fingers crossed it works!