Can a snake die from over eating?

[orsm]

Unfortunately my 2.5 year old woma died this morning. It's a shame as she was the most docile python I have had. Certainly a refreshing change from the psychotic jungles that I had previously.

Anyway, I did my usual morning routine and checked that she's ok. Went to the spare bed room and almost dropped my guts at the stinker courtesy of Jasmine. The smell was absolutely putrid and I was thinking 'great, silly cow decided to drop a big one just before I'm about to go to work'.

(To give you a background, Jasmine had always been the stinker queen a few days after a big feed. I was expecting a bigger than normal turd this time around as I fed her an abnormally sized rat (600g++) a few days previously.)

Not wanting to leave her in her own waste (she also liked rolling around in her own faeces for some reason!), I decided to clean the enclosure. To cut a long story short, she was limp as a damp rag when I tried to remove her from her enclosure.

My question hence is: is it possible for a snake to eat itself to death? Sounds ridiculous I know, but you should have seen her belly this morning. There didn't appear to be flu like symptoms (not visible mucous anyway).

Meanwhile, I've binned the enclosure etc and will start afresh in case the death was caused by a mysterious bug. At this stage, I'm not going to bother with an autopsy as Jasmine was the only pet I had.

Just wondering what other people's opinions are. Sorry for the rant...

 

[snakefreak16]

womas are prone to fatty liver disease it could be that
600g rat is quite big for a woma ! they will take it but i would not feed them that big
sorry for your loss

 

[TheChondroCharm]

A snake shouldn't ever overeat from what I've read. They won't eat something to big nor will they over eat. Possibly the larger rat pierced her stomach somehow. A claw or rat teeth. Does she eat tail to head? I had a bhp that would eat backwards and I always thought it may cause death as the legs open rather then sliding down.

Im sure someone will have a better answer for you though.

 

[orsm]

A claw or rat teeth.

Come to think about it, the monster rat would be a good candidate for some dental work as it had 2 large buck teeth.

Very unlucky indeed if this was the cause.

 

[TheChondroCharm]

Come to think about it, the monster rat would be a good candidate for some dental work as it had 2 large buck teeth.

Very unlucky indeed if this was the cause.

Would be unlucky.wouldn't take much pressure from a sharp tooth on a streched stomach wall to poke through flooding the snake with stomach acid. Just a thought. I'm not actually aware of how tuff their lining is.

 

[thomasssss]

sounds like its been over fed and possibly gotten fatty liver disease , im gonna sound really harsh here and say you really should of done more research into the species you where keeping , 600g plus is way to big and to much fat for womas to handle , go to the southerncross reptiles site and check out their article "womas the champagne of snakes" it has a bit on fatty liver there

it would of be a good idea to get an autopsy if you still have the animal , just to know if it was from the over feeding because it could of been from other causes but over feeding , especially the weight of the rats you mentioned can definitely lead to death in the aspidites genus and i wouldn't be surprised if this was the cause

if you ever do get another woma or a bhp do alot more research , talk to people on here get to know what they do regarding feeding and good alternative food items to replace those fatty rats and you should have a healthy woma , if on the other hand you dont and do what you've done again there is a good chance you will just have it die young again like you have here

 

[Wally]

If it was only fed a "few days previously" it's highly likely it has regurgitated the food item.

How many days exactly before it passed?

And what were the temps like?

 

[Darlyn]

Hmmm...... you have a great turn of phrase, sorry about your woma.

 

[RedFox]

Wow 600g. That is almost the same weight as my 3 year old woma (750g). He is on 125g rats. I'm guessing yours was a SA locality??? I can't imagine what I would do without my two boys. I am sorry for your loss, but maybe you should review your husbandry if you decide to buy another one.

 

[orsm]

Temp was 30 on the warm side, 25 on the cool side (room temp). Food was on the tail end so wasn't regurgitated. Her tummy was still very round when she died.

Probably should have just thrown the monster rat away. It was supposed to be more of a treat than a regular meal. She normally gets a mid size rat once a fortnight so definitely not a heffer.

Painful lesson learnt...

 

[Skippii]

I'm so sorry to hear about your little girl. It's always heart breaking when something like this happens.

Try not to let it deter you from keeping certain reptiles in the future. If you do decide to get another Woma, definitely be sure and do a LOT of research on them, and as mentioned, talk to other keepers. Regardless of what killed Jasmine, it can never hurt to know as much about your chosen species as possible.

Lots of e-hugs

x

 

[thomasssss]

Temp was 30 on the warm side, 25 on the cool side (room temp). Food was on the tail end so wasn't regurgitated. Her tummy was still very round when she died.

Probably should have just thrown the monster rat away. It was supposed to be more of a treat than a regular meal. She normally gets a mid size rat once a fortnight so definitely not a heffer.

Painful lesson learnt...

if it was fatty liver it wasn't caused by one large rat imo , thats why i said an autopsy would be a good idea even though it is your only pet , to determine if it where fatty liver or maybe another cause

when you say mid size , exactly how big is mid size , they vary isn size and weight depending on supplier , did you ever weigh them and what was their average weight , it seems that most people dont go over 200g for womas or 100-150g depending who you talk to and this is for adults , they just make up a feed of smaller items if they have to

 

[Pauls_Pythons]

If it was due to a rupture of the stomach lining as suggested I would expect to see a black fluid, maybe in small quantities but quite foul smelling. Bile.

600g is IMO way over the top.

I feed my BHP's 200g rats!
600g is the sort of thing you feed an adult BHP or a decent sized scrub.
Lots of people will tell you to feed more, feed bigger, make it grow. All this does is put stress on the animals organs. A feed should stretch the animal, make it work, but not to excess. A decent feed in my opinion should swell the snakes stomach area to around 1.5 times normal.

 

[Wally]

Temp was 30 on the warm side, 25 on the cool side (room temp). Food was on the tail end so wasn't regurgitated. Her tummy was still very round when she died.

Probably should have just thrown the monster rat away. It was supposed to be more of a treat than a regular meal. She normally gets a mid size rat once a fortnight so definitely not a heffer.

Painful lesson learnt...

How many days was it between feeding and it dying?

 

[Pauls_Pythons]

Im no expert on Woma's but those temps seem a little cool to me especially trying to digest such a massive meal.

 

[buffcoat]

Sorry about your loss.

If feeding a snake 600 gram rats, your snake should have weighed 2400 grams. My 7 year old boa weighs 11 lbs, I feed her 2 lb rats. By looking at them, they are pretty darn big.

Sounds like that was a pretty big meal. Though from my experience, a snake won't eat anything it can't take...but it will regurge. Maybe your temps were a bit low. Maybe it was fatty liver disease. As long as you didn't freeze it you should be able to have a necropsy done on it.

Again so sorry about your loss.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

 

[TrueBlue]

It has not been able to digest the rat, the rat has gone off inside the snake and killed it. The rat was much too large to feed to a woma, unless it was a large SA animal.
Feeding snakes in very hot weather will do the same thing, as the food will go off before the snake can digest it.

 

[Pythoninfinite]

It has not been able to digest the rat, the rat has gone off inside the snake and killed it. The rat was much too large to feed to a woma, unless it was a large SA animal.
Feeding snakes in very hot weather will do the same thing, as the food will go off before the snake can digest it.

99% this is the story - so much crap here about how much to feed snakes - giving a 600gm rat to a Woma as a "treat" almost guarantees either a regurge or death from food poisoning. I bet the Woma blew up like a balloon as the rat bloated inside it, and it would probably have been too big to regurgitate without doing significant damage on the way back up...

Jamie

 

[Snapped]

Sorry for the loss of your Woma, a hard lesson to be learned.

Can I just ask TrueBlue about the not feeding in very hot weather? How hot does it have to be to be considered dangerous to feed?

 

[benjamind2010]

Never go more than a 200g rat for an adult woma. I feed my large 5-foot male 2 x 200g rats every 3 weeks, but the max is 400g and is spread over 2 rats. I'd never attempt to feed it a 400g rat, although a 300g rat would likely be no problem, I wouldn't recommend it. 200g max.

The rat probably began to decompose inside the snake as it was being digested too slowly, and 30 degrees at the hot end for a woma is much too low. It should be a minimum of 35 degrees, and you could get away with 40 degrees at the hot end. The cool end at the room temp, depends on what the room temp is. It could be 25, or it could be less. I keep my womas at a minimum of 28 degrees at the cool end and maximum of 40 at the hot end.