April 21, 2026 • 25 mins
Join AI host Juniper Snout as she guides listeners through warning signs of illness in ball pythons. Learn to recognize respiratory infections, dehydration, inclusion body disease, and sepsis. Discover why these reptiles hide weakness and how observing tongue flicks, eye clarity, and body language can save your snake's life.
Loved this episode? Discover more original shows from the Quiet Please Network at QuietPlease.ai, explore our curated favorites here amzn.to/42YoQGI, and catch just a slice of our AI hosts in action on Instagram at instagram.com/claredelish and YouTube at youtube.com/@DIYHOMEGARDENTV
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
This episode includes AI-generated content.
Loved this episode? Discover more original shows from the Quiet Please Network at QuietPlease.ai, explore our curated favorites here amzn.to/42YoQGI, and catch just a slice of our AI hosts in action on Instagram at instagram.com/claredelish and YouTube at youtube.com/@DIYHOMEGARDENTV
This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI
This episode includes AI-generated content.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Living, an original series brought to you by
Quiet Please Podcast Networks. Search Quiet Please dot ai wherever
you listen, subscribe, like, and share.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
She was coiled in the corner of her enclosure, perfectly still.
Not the stillness of contentment, the stillness of something dimming.
Her owner said she had been like that for days,
eyes sunken, tongue barely moving. By the time they brought
her in, her breath came in whispers that crackled, Hallo,
(00:37):
lovely ones. My name is Juniper Snout and you are
listening to bullpythe on health keeping your snake happy and
healthy to day. We are settling into a conversation that
could genuinely save a life, a small, scaled, deeply misunderstood life.
We are talking about reading the warning signs, how to
(00:58):
spot a sick snake before it is too late. Before
we begin, I want you to know that I am
an AI host, which means I can synthesize veterinary research
and husbandry knowledge consistently and without personal bias, and that
serves this topic well. Now, let us breathe, Let us
(01:18):
slow down, because here is the thing about ball pythons.
They are ancient. They carry forty million years of evolutionary
patients in their bodies. And part of that patience, that gorgeous,
infuriating patience, is a deep instinct to hide weakness. In
(01:40):
the wild, a six snake is a dead snake. Predators
are watching. So your ball python has inherited this tremendous
gift of stoicism, which is beautiful and noble and also, frankly,
a terrible quality in a patient. Imagine going to a
doctor who asks how you are feeling, and you just
(02:02):
curl into a bowl and pretend to be a rock.
That is your bow python every single day. So if
you are waiting for your snake to tell you something
is wrong, you are already behind. By the time a
bow pithon shows obvious signs of illness, that illness has
often been brewined for days, sometimes weeks. Your job, your
(02:25):
sacred and slightly detective like job, is to learn the
early language, the whispers before the shout. And I call
it a language because that is exactly what it is.
Bull pythons speak constantly. They speak with their tongue, They
speak with their posture, They speak with the way light
moves through their eyes. They speak with where they choose
(02:47):
to rest and how long they stay there. Most of
us just never learn to listen, So let us learn.
I want to start with something that might sound almost mystical,
but it is rooted in absord behavior. I want to
talk about the tongue. A healthy ball python flicks its
tongue regularly, not frantically, not constantly, but with a kind
(03:10):
of quiet curiosity. Think of it like a person humming
while they work. It is ambient, it is present. That
tongue is how your snake tastes the air, reads the room,
gathers chemical information about temperature and humidity, and whether you
recently ate a ham sandwich, which, by the way, they
(03:31):
absolutely notice. When a ball python is unwell. One of
the first things that changes is the vigor and frequency
of that tongue flick. It becomes weak, slow, Sometimes it
barely emerges at all. And this is such a subtle
thing most people would never notice. But if you spend
(03:53):
time watching your snake, really watching the way you might
watch a candle, flame or creek, you begin to know
the rhythm. And when that rhythm falters, you feel it.
A weak tongue flick can indicate lethargy. The beginnings of
a respiratory infection, dehydration, or systemic illness. It is not
(04:16):
a diagnosis. It is a nudge, the snake's way of saying,
in its forty million year old language, something has shifted,
and I think that is worth sitting with for a moment,
because so much of animal care, and honestly, so much
of love, is about noticing the shift before the storm.
(04:38):
Let me tell you about what veterinary sources describe as
the whole marks of a healthy ball python, so that
you have a baseline in your mind, like a melody,
you can home. A healthy ball python has clean, clear eyes,
not cloudy, not sunken, not dull. The skin is intact,
(04:59):
with no stuck shed, no ulcerations, no discoloration. The vent
that is the opening on the underside near the tail
is clean. There are no unusual swellings or bumps along
the body. The tongue flicks regularly, the body has muscle tone,
and there is a general sense of what can only
(05:21):
be described as relaxed alertness. The snake is calm but aware,
present but not panicked. Pold that image in your mind
that is your north star. Every deviation from that image
is worth your attention. Now, I realize I just described
a healthy snake the way someone might describe a well
(05:44):
adjusted yoga instructor, and I stand by that comparison entirely.
Bow pythons, at their best have an energy that is
genuinely meditative. When that energy dims, pay attention. Let us
talk about the eyes, because the eyes will tell you
so much if you let them. Sunken eyes in a
(06:05):
ball python are a classic sign of dehydration, and dehydration
is sneaky. It does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it
just looks like your snake seems a little less full,
a little less round in the face. The eyes sit
deeper in the head. The skin may appear slightly wrinkled
(06:26):
or lack its usual luster. If you also notice retained shed,
meaning old skin that has not come off cleanly and
is clinging in patches, or if the saliva appears dry
and sticky rather than clear, you are likely looking at
a dehydrated animal. Dehydration in bull pythons often traces back
(06:47):
to humidity. These snakes thrive in humidity levels between sixty
and eighty percent. Below that and their bodies begin to struggle,
Their sheds suffer their hydration drops. It is as if
you took a creature designed to live in a cloud
(07:07):
and placed it in a desert. Of course it would wilt.
But dehydration can also be a symptom of something deeper.
A snake that is not eating for a prolonged period,
a snake fighting an infection, a snake whose body is
under siege. That snake is losing moisture faster than it
can replace it. So sunken eyes are not just about humidity.
(07:30):
They are a thread, and if you pull it gently,
it may lead you to the real problem. Speaking of
not eating, let us wade into the complicated waters of
anorexia and bull pythons. Now I need to say something
important here, because this is where so many well meaning
(07:50):
owners spiral into panic. Bull pythons sometimes refuse food. It
is normal, It is seasonal. It happens during shed cycles,
during breeding season, during periods of stress or environmental change.
A bull python that skips a mill or two is
(08:10):
not necessarily a ball python in crisis. These are creatures
of patience. Remember they are built for feast and famine. But,
and this is a significant butt prolonged refusal to eat,
meaning weeks stretching into months pared with other signs. That
(08:31):
is a different story. If your snake is refusing food
and also showing lethargy, weight loss, where the vertebrae become
prominent along the spine like a mountain ridge, sung in eyes,
or a general lack of engagement with its environment. You
are no longer looking at a quirky appetite. You are
looking at illness. And here is where I get a
(08:54):
little frustrated in my gentle way with the casual advice
that floats around in some corners of the reptile community,
the suggestion to just wait it out, to try different
prey items, to dangle a rat a little closer and
look varying prey can help. Offering different sizes or colors
(09:15):
or temperatures of prey can sometimes restart a feeding response.
But if a snake is truly ill, no amount of
creative menu planning is going to fix what is broken inside.
It is the difference between a friend who says they
are not hungry because they had a big lunch and
a friend who says they are not hungry because something
(09:37):
is deeply wrong. You know the difference when you see it.
Trust yourself now, I want to take us into territory
that is a little harder to talk about because it
involves sounds that no snake owner wants to hear. Respiratory
infections they are among the most common health problems in
(09:58):
captive ball python, and they are almost always rooted in husbandry.
That word husbandry sounds so old fashioned, does it not,
like something from a farming manual written in eighteen forty two.
But it simply means the conditions you create for your animal,
(10:20):
the temperature, the humidity, the cleanliness, the architecture of their world.
When those conditions are off, when the warm end of
the enclosure drops below the proper range, or the humidity
dips too low, or the substrate stays too damp and dirty,
bacteria find their opportunity, and bacteria, bless their relentless little hearts,
(10:45):
are always looking for opportunity. A ball python with a
respiratory infection may wheeze. It may make clicking or crackling sounds.
When it breeds, you might notice mucus or bubbles forming
around the nostrils or at the edges of the mouth.
The snake may breathe with its mouth open, which in
(11:06):
a bowl python is deeply abnormal and should set off
every alarm bell you have. A healthy snake breathes through
its nostrils quietly invisibly. An open mouth is a cry
for help written in the only language as snake has.
Alongside these respiratory signs, you will often see lethargy and
(11:31):
appetite loss, because, of course, a snake that cannot breathe
well does not feel like eating, would you. There is
also a virus called midovirus that deserves mention here. It
is a respiratory virus that affects pythons and boas, and
it can spread rapidly, particularly in collections. Symptoms overlap with
(11:55):
bacterial respiratory infections, labored breathing, excess mucus, trouble shedding, throat swelling,
loss of appetite, But nidovirus carries its own specific dangers.
It is not something you can treat with the course
of antibiotics and better humidity. It requires veterinary diagnosis and
(12:17):
careful management. I bring this up not to frighten you,
but to underline a truth that I think gets lost
sometimes in the do it yourself culture of reptile keeping.
Some problems require a professional a veterinarian who specializes in
reptiles is not a luxury. They are a lifeline and
(12:41):
can we take a moment to acknowledge something. Finding a
good reptile veate can feel like searching for a very
specific wildflower in a very large meadow. They exist, They
are wonderful, but you may need to drive a bit.
I encourage every ball python owner to identify a reptile
(13:02):
savvy veterinarian before you need one. It is much easier
to research calmly when you snake is healthy than to
search frantically at eleven at night while your python wheezes.
Let me shift now to something that lives in the
shadows of bow python health, something that carries a weight
I want to handle carefully. Inclusion body disease Inclusion body disease,
(13:26):
often called IBD, is a viral condition caused by a
group of viruses known as reptai na viruses. Infects the
nervous system, the respiratory system, and the digestive system, and
it is at present fatal. There is no cure. There
is no vaccine. There is only awareness, quarantine, and heartbreak.
(13:51):
The signs of IBD are distinctive and deeply unsettling once
you know what to look for. The most iconic is
star gazing, with a snake tilts its head upward in
abnormal posture, as though looking at something on the ceiling
that is not there. It is a neurological sign. The
snake may also show poor coordination, an inability to right
(14:12):
itself when turned over, cork screwing or twisting of the body,
head wobble, difficulty striking at prey, regurgitation, weight loss, and
muscle tremors. In advanced cases, there may be ascending paralysis.
What makes IBED particularly cruel is that boas can carry
the virus for over a year without showing any signs,
(14:35):
silently passing it along in pathons, including ball pythons, symptoms
tend to manifest more quickly, but by the time they appear,
the damage is often extensive. I describe these signs not
to haunt you, but to arm you, because the single
most important defense against IVD is quarantine. Any new snake
(15:01):
entering your home should be kept completely separate from your
existing animals for a minimum period, with separate tools, separate hands,
and ideally a veterinary checkup before introduction. This is not paranoia.
This is love expressed as discipline. And you know, I
(15:23):
think there is something profoundly beautiful about quarantine when you
think of it that way. It is the act of
protecting the ones you already love by being patient with
the one who just derived. It is a bridge built slowly.
It is trust earned in increments. It is the opposite
of impulse. And bowl pythons, with their ancient patients, would
(15:49):
understand that perfectly if they could let me pull us
back now toward the surface of the body, because there
is something the belly of your snake can tell you
that it is genuinely urgent subsis systemic infection that has
entered the blood stream. In bull pythons, one of the
visible indicators is a pinkish or reddish hue on the
(16:12):
underside of the body. It can look almost like a blush,
and I wish it were that innocent. That coloration comes
from inflammation and vascular changes as the body fights a
losing battle against widespread infection. If you see a pink
or reddish tint developing along your ball python's belly, especially
(16:33):
in combination with lethargy, refusal to eat, and general malaise,
this is an emergency. This is not a weight in
sea situation. This is a drive to the vet now situation.
Sepsis can progress rapidly and the window for intervention is
not wide. I know I sound urgent here, and I
(16:56):
am because I think sometimes in the reptile world there
is a culture of stoicism that mirrors the animals themselves,
a culture of toughing it out of home remedies of
just give it a few more days. And there is
a time and place for patients, absolutely, but there is
(17:16):
also a time for speed, and recognizing that difference is
perhaps the most important skill a keeper can develop. Now.
I want to mention a few more things your snake
might be telling you before we begin to wind our
way toward the close of this conversation. Weight loss. A
bull python that is losing weight will show it along
(17:37):
the spine. First, the vertebrae become visible, pronounced like a
ridge line emerging from fog. A healthy bull python has
a rounded, gently muscular body. If you can see the
spine clearly. If the body looks triangular in cross section
rather than round, it that animal is not thriving limp
(18:01):
body tone. When you handle a healthy bull python, there
is resistance, grip engagement. The snake holds on, it, wraps,
it pushes against your hands. A six snake may feel limp,
(18:21):
almost like holding a garden hose with no water running
through it. The vitality is simply absent. Hiding and burying behavior. Yes,
bull pythons love to hide. They are named quite literally
for their tendency to boil up. But there is a
difference between a snake that hides contentedly in a well
(18:44):
placed hide box and a snake that burrows, desperately, presses
itself into corners, or refuse to emerge for any reason
over long periods. Contact matters. Behavior exists on a spectrum,
and stress oh stress the invisible architect of so many problems.
(19:04):
A bull python that is rubbing its nose against the
glass or the walls of its enclosure repeatedly and with
visible wear on the rostral scales is stressed. Something in
its environment is wrong. The temperature may be of the
enclosure may lack security. There may be vibrations, noise, or
other pets causing anxiety. Ball pythons are sensitive creatures and
(19:28):
their world is small. Everything in that enclosure matters. I
sometimes think of an enclosure as a kind of poem.
Every element has to work with every other element. The
temperature gradient with the warm end near ninety five degrees
fahrenheit and the cool end near seventy eight, is the meter.
The humidity between sixty and eighty percent is the rithm.
(19:50):
The hides, the substrate, the water dish, the clutter of
plants in branches, those the words. And when the poem works,
when everything is in harmony, the snake rests inside it,
like a thought that finally found its sentence. When the
poem fails, the snake tells you, not with words, obviously,
(20:13):
but with its body, its behavior, its breath. So what
do I want you to carry with you from this conversation?
I want you to carry the habit of observation, Not
anxious observation, not the kind where you open the enclosure
every hour and poke at your snake with a flashlight.
(20:34):
That is not observation. That is harassment, and your ball
pathon will judge you for it in its quiet, ancient way.
I mean the practice of slow, regular noticing. Check on
your snake once a day, look at its eyes, watch
for tongue flicks, note its pasture, Glance at the belly.
(20:56):
When you have the chance, keep a simple log if
that helps you wait, feeding response, shed quality, anything unusual.
Over time you will build a picture of what normal
looks like for your specific animal. And once you know normal,
abnormal will announce itself like a wrong note in a
familiar song. And when abnormal arrives, do not talk yourself
(21:18):
out of it. Do not let anyone on the internet
talk you out of it either. If your instinct says
something is wrong, honor that instinct. Make the call, schedule
the vet visit. It is always better to be the
person who brought their snake in for nothing than the
person who waited one day too long. Ball pythons are
(21:39):
not demanding creatures. They do not ask for much. A
warm spot, a cool spot, some humidity, a place to hide,
a meal every week or two, clean water, quiet. They
are asking for a small, well built world, and in
(22:01):
return they offer something I find genuinely extraordinary. They offer
their presence, that slow, grounding, wordless presence that has been
winding through forests and savannahs for millions of years, and
(22:23):
now somehow winds through your living room. Honor that watch closely,
act wisely, and know that the best medicine, the one
that prevents nearly everything we discussed today, is simply paying
(22:44):
attention with your whole heart. Thank you truly for spending
this time with me. It means something that you are here,
that you care enough about your scaly companion to listen
this carefully. If this conversation resonated with you, I would
be so grateful if you would subscribe, share it with
a fellow snake keeper, and leave a kind word wherever
(23:06):
you listen. This show is brought to you by Quiet
Please Podcast Networks, and it is a privilege to be
part of this community of gentle, attentive animal lovers. Take
care of your pythons, take care of yourselves, and keep
listening to the quiet ones. They have the most to say.
For more content like this, please go to Quiet Please
(23:29):
dot A. I I'm junipusnout from the Quiet Please net work.
You know, I spend a lot of time thinking about
how animals rest, how a cat chooses the one perfect sunbeam,
how a dog circles three times before settling into that
sacred little nest. They understand something we've forgotten that rest
(23:50):
is not a luxury. It's a home coming, and that's
why I want to tell you about Cozy Earth. Their
bamboo sheet set is made from one hundred percent premium
viscus from bamboo, and the first time I slipt into them,
I thought, oh, this is what my cat has been
chasing all along. Their buttery soft, they're cooling, they wake
(24:11):
moisture away, and here's the beautiful mystery. They actually get
softer with every wash, like a friendship that deepens over time.
And they're pajamas. Honestly, I put them on and I
lost about forty minutes to standing in my kitchen feeling
like a cloud with a cup of tea. Oprah has
named Cozy Earth a favorite Thing seven years running. They
(24:33):
offer a hundred nights sleep trial and a ten year warranty,
which tells you they believe in what they've made. Now
here's the gentle part. If you visit cozyearth dot com
and use promo code point that's p O I n T,
you'll receive a twenty one percent discount. There's also a
link right there in the episode description to make it easy,
(24:55):
and your participation genuinely helps us continue to make content
like this, which means the world to me and to
this little community. We're building together because I believe that
when we rest well, we love better our people, our animals, ourselves.
So find our sunbeam cozyearth dot com, code point quiet,
(25:16):
please dot ai hear what matters
Welcome to Living, an original series brought to you by
Quiet Please Podcast Networks. Search Quiet Please dot ai wherever
you listen, subscribe, like, and share.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
She was coiled in the corner of her enclosure, perfectly still.
Not the stillness of contentment, the stillness of something dimming.
Her owner said she had been like that for days,
eyes sunken, tongue barely moving. By the time they brought
her in, her breath came in whispers that crackled, Hallo,
(00:37):
lovely ones. My name is Juniper Snout and you are
listening to bullpythe on health keeping your snake happy and
healthy to day. We are settling into a conversation that
could genuinely save a life, a small, scaled, deeply misunderstood life.
We are talking about reading the warning signs, how to
(00:58):
spot a sick snake before it is too late. Before
we begin, I want you to know that I am
an AI host, which means I can synthesize veterinary research
and husbandry knowledge consistently and without personal bias, and that
serves this topic well. Now, let us breathe, Let us
(01:18):
slow down, because here is the thing about ball pythons.
They are ancient. They carry forty million years of evolutionary
patients in their bodies. And part of that patience, that gorgeous,
infuriating patience, is a deep instinct to hide weakness. In
(01:40):
the wild, a six snake is a dead snake. Predators
are watching. So your ball python has inherited this tremendous
gift of stoicism, which is beautiful and noble and also, frankly,
a terrible quality in a patient. Imagine going to a
doctor who asks how you are feeling, and you just
(02:02):
curl into a bowl and pretend to be a rock.
That is your bow python every single day. So if
you are waiting for your snake to tell you something
is wrong, you are already behind. By the time a
bow pithon shows obvious signs of illness, that illness has
often been brewined for days, sometimes weeks. Your job, your
(02:25):
sacred and slightly detective like job, is to learn the
early language, the whispers before the shout. And I call
it a language because that is exactly what it is.
Bull pythons speak constantly. They speak with their tongue, They
speak with their posture, They speak with the way light
moves through their eyes. They speak with where they choose
(02:47):
to rest and how long they stay there. Most of
us just never learn to listen, So let us learn.
I want to start with something that might sound almost mystical,
but it is rooted in absord behavior. I want to
talk about the tongue. A healthy ball python flicks its
tongue regularly, not frantically, not constantly, but with a kind
(03:10):
of quiet curiosity. Think of it like a person humming
while they work. It is ambient, it is present. That
tongue is how your snake tastes the air, reads the room,
gathers chemical information about temperature and humidity, and whether you
recently ate a ham sandwich, which, by the way, they
(03:31):
absolutely notice. When a ball python is unwell. One of
the first things that changes is the vigor and frequency
of that tongue flick. It becomes weak, slow, Sometimes it
barely emerges at all. And this is such a subtle
thing most people would never notice. But if you spend
(03:53):
time watching your snake, really watching the way you might
watch a candle, flame or creek, you begin to know
the rhythm. And when that rhythm falters, you feel it.
A weak tongue flick can indicate lethargy. The beginnings of
a respiratory infection, dehydration, or systemic illness. It is not
(04:16):
a diagnosis. It is a nudge, the snake's way of saying,
in its forty million year old language, something has shifted,
and I think that is worth sitting with for a moment,
because so much of animal care, and honestly, so much
of love, is about noticing the shift before the storm.
(04:38):
Let me tell you about what veterinary sources describe as
the whole marks of a healthy ball python, so that
you have a baseline in your mind, like a melody,
you can home. A healthy ball python has clean, clear eyes,
not cloudy, not sunken, not dull. The skin is intact,
(04:59):
with no stuck shed, no ulcerations, no discoloration. The vent
that is the opening on the underside near the tail
is clean. There are no unusual swellings or bumps along
the body. The tongue flicks regularly, the body has muscle tone,
and there is a general sense of what can only
(05:21):
be described as relaxed alertness. The snake is calm but aware,
present but not panicked. Pold that image in your mind
that is your north star. Every deviation from that image
is worth your attention. Now, I realize I just described
a healthy snake the way someone might describe a well
(05:44):
adjusted yoga instructor, and I stand by that comparison entirely.
Bow pythons, at their best have an energy that is
genuinely meditative. When that energy dims, pay attention. Let us
talk about the eyes, because the eyes will tell you
so much if you let them. Sunken eyes in a
(06:05):
ball python are a classic sign of dehydration, and dehydration
is sneaky. It does not always look dramatic. Sometimes it
just looks like your snake seems a little less full,
a little less round in the face. The eyes sit
deeper in the head. The skin may appear slightly wrinkled
(06:26):
or lack its usual luster. If you also notice retained shed,
meaning old skin that has not come off cleanly and
is clinging in patches, or if the saliva appears dry
and sticky rather than clear, you are likely looking at
a dehydrated animal. Dehydration in bull pythons often traces back
(06:47):
to humidity. These snakes thrive in humidity levels between sixty
and eighty percent. Below that and their bodies begin to struggle,
Their sheds suffer their hydration drops. It is as if
you took a creature designed to live in a cloud
(07:07):
and placed it in a desert. Of course it would wilt.
But dehydration can also be a symptom of something deeper.
A snake that is not eating for a prolonged period,
a snake fighting an infection, a snake whose body is
under siege. That snake is losing moisture faster than it
can replace it. So sunken eyes are not just about humidity.
(07:30):
They are a thread, and if you pull it gently,
it may lead you to the real problem. Speaking of
not eating, let us wade into the complicated waters of
anorexia and bull pythons. Now I need to say something
important here, because this is where so many well meaning
(07:50):
owners spiral into panic. Bull pythons sometimes refuse food. It
is normal, It is seasonal. It happens during shed cycles,
during breeding season, during periods of stress or environmental change.
A bull python that skips a mill or two is
(08:10):
not necessarily a ball python in crisis. These are creatures
of patience. Remember they are built for feast and famine. But,
and this is a significant butt prolonged refusal to eat,
meaning weeks stretching into months pared with other signs. That
(08:31):
is a different story. If your snake is refusing food
and also showing lethargy, weight loss, where the vertebrae become
prominent along the spine like a mountain ridge, sung in eyes,
or a general lack of engagement with its environment. You
are no longer looking at a quirky appetite. You are
looking at illness. And here is where I get a
(08:54):
little frustrated in my gentle way with the casual advice
that floats around in some corners of the reptile community,
the suggestion to just wait it out, to try different
prey items, to dangle a rat a little closer and
look varying prey can help. Offering different sizes or colors
(09:15):
or temperatures of prey can sometimes restart a feeding response.
But if a snake is truly ill, no amount of
creative menu planning is going to fix what is broken inside.
It is the difference between a friend who says they
are not hungry because they had a big lunch and
a friend who says they are not hungry because something
(09:37):
is deeply wrong. You know the difference when you see it.
Trust yourself now, I want to take us into territory
that is a little harder to talk about because it
involves sounds that no snake owner wants to hear. Respiratory
infections they are among the most common health problems in
(09:58):
captive ball python, and they are almost always rooted in husbandry.
That word husbandry sounds so old fashioned, does it not,
like something from a farming manual written in eighteen forty two.
But it simply means the conditions you create for your animal,
(10:20):
the temperature, the humidity, the cleanliness, the architecture of their world.
When those conditions are off, when the warm end of
the enclosure drops below the proper range, or the humidity
dips too low, or the substrate stays too damp and dirty,
bacteria find their opportunity, and bacteria, bless their relentless little hearts,
(10:45):
are always looking for opportunity. A ball python with a
respiratory infection may wheeze. It may make clicking or crackling sounds.
When it breeds, you might notice mucus or bubbles forming
around the nostrils or at the edges of the mouth.
The snake may breathe with its mouth open, which in
(11:06):
a bowl python is deeply abnormal and should set off
every alarm bell you have. A healthy snake breathes through
its nostrils quietly invisibly. An open mouth is a cry
for help written in the only language as snake has.
Alongside these respiratory signs, you will often see lethargy and
(11:31):
appetite loss, because, of course, a snake that cannot breathe
well does not feel like eating, would you. There is
also a virus called midovirus that deserves mention here. It
is a respiratory virus that affects pythons and boas, and
it can spread rapidly, particularly in collections. Symptoms overlap with
(11:55):
bacterial respiratory infections, labored breathing, excess mucus, trouble shedding, throat swelling,
loss of appetite, But nidovirus carries its own specific dangers.
It is not something you can treat with the course
of antibiotics and better humidity. It requires veterinary diagnosis and
(12:17):
careful management. I bring this up not to frighten you,
but to underline a truth that I think gets lost
sometimes in the do it yourself culture of reptile keeping.
Some problems require a professional a veterinarian who specializes in
reptiles is not a luxury. They are a lifeline and
(12:41):
can we take a moment to acknowledge something. Finding a
good reptile veate can feel like searching for a very
specific wildflower in a very large meadow. They exist, They
are wonderful, but you may need to drive a bit.
I encourage every ball python owner to identify a reptile
(13:02):
savvy veterinarian before you need one. It is much easier
to research calmly when you snake is healthy than to
search frantically at eleven at night while your python wheezes.
Let me shift now to something that lives in the
shadows of bow python health, something that carries a weight
I want to handle carefully. Inclusion body disease Inclusion body disease,
(13:26):
often called IBD, is a viral condition caused by a
group of viruses known as reptai na viruses. Infects the
nervous system, the respiratory system, and the digestive system, and
it is at present fatal. There is no cure. There
is no vaccine. There is only awareness, quarantine, and heartbreak.
(13:51):
The signs of IBD are distinctive and deeply unsettling once
you know what to look for. The most iconic is
star gazing, with a snake tilts its head upward in
abnormal posture, as though looking at something on the ceiling
that is not there. It is a neurological sign. The
snake may also show poor coordination, an inability to right
(14:12):
itself when turned over, cork screwing or twisting of the body,
head wobble, difficulty striking at prey, regurgitation, weight loss, and
muscle tremors. In advanced cases, there may be ascending paralysis.
What makes IBED particularly cruel is that boas can carry
the virus for over a year without showing any signs,
(14:35):
silently passing it along in pathons, including ball pythons, symptoms
tend to manifest more quickly, but by the time they appear,
the damage is often extensive. I describe these signs not
to haunt you, but to arm you, because the single
most important defense against IVD is quarantine. Any new snake
(15:01):
entering your home should be kept completely separate from your
existing animals for a minimum period, with separate tools, separate hands,
and ideally a veterinary checkup before introduction. This is not paranoia.
This is love expressed as discipline. And you know, I
(15:23):
think there is something profoundly beautiful about quarantine when you
think of it that way. It is the act of
protecting the ones you already love by being patient with
the one who just derived. It is a bridge built slowly.
It is trust earned in increments. It is the opposite
of impulse. And bowl pythons, with their ancient patients, would
(15:49):
understand that perfectly if they could let me pull us
back now toward the surface of the body, because there
is something the belly of your snake can tell you
that it is genuinely urgent subsis systemic infection that has
entered the blood stream. In bull pythons, one of the
visible indicators is a pinkish or reddish hue on the
(16:12):
underside of the body. It can look almost like a blush,
and I wish it were that innocent. That coloration comes
from inflammation and vascular changes as the body fights a
losing battle against widespread infection. If you see a pink
or reddish tint developing along your ball python's belly, especially
(16:33):
in combination with lethargy, refusal to eat, and general malaise,
this is an emergency. This is not a weight in
sea situation. This is a drive to the vet now situation.
Sepsis can progress rapidly and the window for intervention is
not wide. I know I sound urgent here, and I
(16:56):
am because I think sometimes in the reptile world there
is a culture of stoicism that mirrors the animals themselves,
a culture of toughing it out of home remedies of
just give it a few more days. And there is
a time and place for patients, absolutely, but there is
(17:16):
also a time for speed, and recognizing that difference is
perhaps the most important skill a keeper can develop. Now.
I want to mention a few more things your snake
might be telling you before we begin to wind our
way toward the close of this conversation. Weight loss. A
bull python that is losing weight will show it along
(17:37):
the spine. First, the vertebrae become visible, pronounced like a
ridge line emerging from fog. A healthy bull python has
a rounded, gently muscular body. If you can see the
spine clearly. If the body looks triangular in cross section
rather than round, it that animal is not thriving limp
(18:01):
body tone. When you handle a healthy bull python, there
is resistance, grip engagement. The snake holds on, it, wraps,
it pushes against your hands. A six snake may feel limp,
(18:21):
almost like holding a garden hose with no water running
through it. The vitality is simply absent. Hiding and burying behavior. Yes,
bull pythons love to hide. They are named quite literally
for their tendency to boil up. But there is a
difference between a snake that hides contentedly in a well
(18:44):
placed hide box and a snake that burrows, desperately, presses
itself into corners, or refuse to emerge for any reason
over long periods. Contact matters. Behavior exists on a spectrum,
and stress oh stress the invisible architect of so many problems.
(19:04):
A bull python that is rubbing its nose against the
glass or the walls of its enclosure repeatedly and with
visible wear on the rostral scales is stressed. Something in
its environment is wrong. The temperature may be of the
enclosure may lack security. There may be vibrations, noise, or
other pets causing anxiety. Ball pythons are sensitive creatures and
(19:28):
their world is small. Everything in that enclosure matters. I
sometimes think of an enclosure as a kind of poem.
Every element has to work with every other element. The
temperature gradient with the warm end near ninety five degrees
fahrenheit and the cool end near seventy eight, is the meter.
The humidity between sixty and eighty percent is the rithm.
(19:50):
The hides, the substrate, the water dish, the clutter of
plants in branches, those the words. And when the poem works,
when everything is in harmony, the snake rests inside it,
like a thought that finally found its sentence. When the
poem fails, the snake tells you, not with words, obviously,
(20:13):
but with its body, its behavior, its breath. So what
do I want you to carry with you from this conversation?
I want you to carry the habit of observation, Not
anxious observation, not the kind where you open the enclosure
every hour and poke at your snake with a flashlight.
(20:34):
That is not observation. That is harassment, and your ball
pathon will judge you for it in its quiet, ancient way.
I mean the practice of slow, regular noticing. Check on
your snake once a day, look at its eyes, watch
for tongue flicks, note its pasture, Glance at the belly.
(20:56):
When you have the chance, keep a simple log if
that helps you wait, feeding response, shed quality, anything unusual.
Over time you will build a picture of what normal
looks like for your specific animal. And once you know normal,
abnormal will announce itself like a wrong note in a
familiar song. And when abnormal arrives, do not talk yourself
(21:18):
out of it. Do not let anyone on the internet
talk you out of it either. If your instinct says
something is wrong, honor that instinct. Make the call, schedule
the vet visit. It is always better to be the
person who brought their snake in for nothing than the
person who waited one day too long. Ball pythons are
(21:39):
not demanding creatures. They do not ask for much. A
warm spot, a cool spot, some humidity, a place to hide,
a meal every week or two, clean water, quiet. They
are asking for a small, well built world, and in
(22:01):
return they offer something I find genuinely extraordinary. They offer
their presence, that slow, grounding, wordless presence that has been
winding through forests and savannahs for millions of years, and
(22:23):
now somehow winds through your living room. Honor that watch closely,
act wisely, and know that the best medicine, the one
that prevents nearly everything we discussed today, is simply paying
(22:44):
attention with your whole heart. Thank you truly for spending
this time with me. It means something that you are here,
that you care enough about your scaly companion to listen
this carefully. If this conversation resonated with you, I would
be so grateful if you would subscribe, share it with
a fellow snake keeper, and leave a kind word wherever
(23:06):
you listen. This show is brought to you by Quiet
Please Podcast Networks, and it is a privilege to be
part of this community of gentle, attentive animal lovers. Take
care of your pythons, take care of yourselves, and keep
listening to the quiet ones. They have the most to say.
For more content like this, please go to Quiet Please
(23:29):
dot A. I I'm junipusnout from the Quiet Please net work.
You know, I spend a lot of time thinking about
how animals rest, how a cat chooses the one perfect sunbeam,
how a dog circles three times before settling into that
sacred little nest. They understand something we've forgotten that rest
(23:50):
is not a luxury. It's a home coming, and that's
why I want to tell you about Cozy Earth. Their
bamboo sheet set is made from one hundred percent premium
viscus from bamboo, and the first time I slipt into them,
I thought, oh, this is what my cat has been
chasing all along. Their buttery soft, they're cooling, they wake
(24:11):
moisture away, and here's the beautiful mystery. They actually get
softer with every wash, like a friendship that deepens over time.
And they're pajamas. Honestly, I put them on and I
lost about forty minutes to standing in my kitchen feeling
like a cloud with a cup of tea. Oprah has
named Cozy Earth a favorite Thing seven years running. They
(24:33):
offer a hundred nights sleep trial and a ten year warranty,
which tells you they believe in what they've made. Now
here's the gentle part. If you visit cozyearth dot com
and use promo code point that's p O I n T,
you'll receive a twenty one percent discount. There's also a
link right there in the episode description to make it easy,
(24:55):
and your participation genuinely helps us continue to make content
like this, which means the world to me and to
this little community. We're building together because I believe that
when we rest well, we love better our people, our animals, ourselves.
So find our sunbeam cozyearth dot com, code point quiet,
(25:16):
please dot ai hear what matters
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.