So I'm cleaning cages, fine and dandy, just as usual.
I get to Sage, my Hogg Island boa and she's released some nice white urates, so I get her ready for a bath. I fed everybody 3 days ago, and I notice when I fully open the cage to remove her she has a slightly larger lump in one part of her stomach. Well I just assume the rat is sideways or something and pick her up anyway. I give her a bath like normal, pick her up with the towel, like normal and begin to dry her off, like normal. When I get to where the lump in her stomach was, not normal, she "burps" up this DISGUSTING smelling orangeish reddish liquid. I am not a weak stomached person, I have a 2 year old with digestive problems. I almost hurled. I had to do a double take to make sure it didn't come out of the other end.
So my mind starts racing, I put her in the tub again, clean up the floor and rinse her some more, she burps up that nasty crap like 3 more times, and the bubble that was abnormal in her stomach is gone. Well I pop her mouth open and sure as shit, her respiratory infection has flared up (she had a horrible one when we got her, from a "reputable" breeder no less) So I clean out her mouth and call in the antibiotic shots with my aunt.
Now I didn't get a chance to talk to my aunt (who is my fill in reptile vet) so that nasty smelling liquid is still a mystery.
Let me tell you what I do know we can rule out as a possibility:
I feed f/t so it couldn't have been internal rat injuries.
My feeders are less than a week old, I picked them up last week, so they are not old.
They were frozen solid when I got them home and when I thawed them.
They didn't smell bad and no one else (knock on wood) is showing these things.
The rat was not too big for her.
She was fine before this afternoon.
She is also going into shed cycle.
When she spit the crap up she was.. at the thresh hold for what I would consider Emergency Vet Visit material (i.e. she stopped sticking her tongue out all the way, she was not resisting too much for me popping her mouth open, she was puffing up her throat.) But once she stopped, she was fine, like it never happened, except that she is still puffing her throat, but she is sticking her tongue all the way out and even chasing me out of her cage like always. I moved her to a quarantine rack and I'm checking on her every half hour until my aunt returns my call. It's like it never happened to her. I checked on every one else to look for 'bubbles" and every one else seems to be progressing just fine.
I guess I just want to see if anyone else has ever experienced this. Or what your opinions are on the fact that maybe she just got a bad rat? Or that it is relative to the R.I. Her and our burm are the only ones who ever had R.I.'s and is was over 6 years ago and cleared up without problem. Hers was here when we got her and has come and gone since.
The liquid litterally reminded me of, and don't ask me how I know this, the liquid that pours from people's orifices when they are decaying and gases are building up inside of them. It smelled horribly like throw up too.
I'm worried if it is a bad rat, trying to operate, as I've been informed constrictors don't respond well to anesthesia, and she's a smaller girl, being a Hogg island, but healthy sized and weight.
What are every one's thoughts?
I appreciate it.
A very flustered,
Kylie Rae
