HELP! Howling Boa! ????

[rocketcrotch]

Apparently, they can make a variety of sounds from their pits.


Possibility?

[rocketcrotch]

I hope thats all, maybe a bit of stuck substrate too?

[ilovemylizard]

Last year, I was having trouble keeping the humidity up in my apartment when I started using my gas wall heater...it baked my entire place bone dry...

I had an adult male Suriname boa, and a large adult female ball, that both did something very similar...

The sound was bizzare, like explosive farting or loud beer/soda belching, and their enitre body jerked forcefully when they did it...both had their mouths slightly open as well. I'm guessing it was sort of like a dry heave, as neither regurged anything, not even fluid...

Once I got the humidity issue taken care of, it never happened again. Both were healthy after that, and displayed no problems at all.

What they are actually doing, I have no idea...but I strongly believe the low humidity caused the behavior...

	Boa Constrictor Constrictor

[nickstone]

Yes, I know exactly the sound you are talking about. You really can't describe it to somebody whose never experienced it. I couldn't find much info about it online either. I had a large female hypo who did it a few times last year. Terry Vandeventer told me in a chatroom one time that it is a digestion issue from possibly feeding too large of a meal, and possibly temps and humidity being off to prevent proper digestion. I would just keep an eye on your boa and make sure your conditions are right. I would also wait a little bit longer before feeding again and possibly a slightly smaller prey item. Best of luck, Nick

[JuliusSqueezer]

It's forced breathing/cough/sneeze...could be caused by blocked nostrils due to the skin popping loose for shed inside the nostrils but that's typically not very loud or cause any serious labored breathing...usually just a light wheeze or whistle when it's nose skin flaking off...or it could be blocked trachea/hacking up phlegm. They don't have a diaphragm so it's hard for them to clear the airway and usually they just aren't very effective in doing so. This is why lower respiratory infections are so dangerous. If it continues and you start seeing yellow gunk splattering the cage walls and glass, drop the humidity and raise the ambient temp to about 91 degrees 24/7 immediately and get him some antibiotics asap....Lower RI (Pneumonia) isn't always as outwardly evident as upper RI. With upper RI, you will usually see a lot of runny snot and open mouth breathing/wheezing. Typically upper precedes lower but not always....or the upper symptoms sometimes go unnoticed and the infection moves deeper because it wasn't treated...

Another possibility is parasites. Many parasites larva that live in the gut as adults, burrow through the skin and get in the blood...travel to the lungs and live there drinking blood till they pupate. Then right as they are becoming adults, they will crawl up the trachea, out of the epiglottis and into the back of the mouth/top of the throat where they are swallowed into the stomach and latch on once they get in the intestinal track where they lay eggs into passing feces, continue drinking blood (1 adult hookworm can drink up to 1 full cc of blood per day) Anyway, at the stage where they are coming up through the glottis to crawl over into the esophagus...they will often cause some hacking/coughing/as you describe howling. It's not hard to imagine a glob of worms coming up your trach and into your mouth as being something uneventful for any animal. I imagine it's quite uncomfortable.

Next time you get poop, I'd get a fecal done pronto.

[owen]

A few months ago, I had just went to bed, and was half asleep, and all the sudden I heard an insanely loud noise. It was so loud it woke me up instantly! It sounded almost like a deep sounding kazoo (best I can describe it) I got up, and turned the light on, and right as the light went on, I saw my female ball python closing her mouth, and pulling her head out of the air. I picked her up, and looked her over, nothing seemed wrong, so I left her alone for a bit, just keeping an eye on her. She has never done it since, she has never refused a meal, and she hasnt been any way different at all. For a few minutes I actually had thought that I just imagined it, since I was half asleep. but my mom asked me about the noise, and said she heard me get up, and she heard me opening the cage.

[nickstone]

Originally Posted by JuliusSqueezer

It's forced breathing/cough/sneeze...could be caused by blocked nostrils due to the skin popping loose for shed inside the nostrils but that's typically not very loud or cause any serious labored breathing...usually just a light wheeze or whistle when it's nose skin flaking off...or it could be blocked trachea/hacking up phlegm. They don't have a diaphragm so it's hard for them to clear the airway and usually they just aren't very effective in doing so. This is why lower respiratory infections are so dangerous. If it continues and you start seeing yellow gunk splattering the cage walls and glass, drop the humidity and raise the ambient temp to about 91 degrees 24/7 immediately and get him some antibiotics asap....Lower RI (Pneumonia) isn't always as outwardly evident as upper RI. With upper RI, you will usually see a lot of runny snot and open mouth breathing/wheezing. Typically upper precedes lower but not always....or the upper symptoms sometimes go unnoticed and the infection moves deeper because it wasn't treated...

Another possibility is parasites. Many parasites larva that live in the gut as adults, burrow through the skin and get in the blood...travel to the lungs and live there drinking blood till they pupate. Then right as they are becoming adults, they will crawl up the trachea, out of the epiglottis and into the back of the mouth/top of the throat where they are swallowed into the stomach and latch on once they get in the intestinal track where they lay eggs into passing feces, continue drinking blood (1 adult hookworm can drink up to 1 full cc of blood per day) Anyway, at the stage where they are coming up through the glottis to crawl over into the esophagus...they will often cause some hacking/coughing/as you describe howling. It's not hard to imagine a glob of worms coming up your trach and into your mouth as being something uneventful for any animal. I imagine it's quite uncomfortable.

Next time you get poop, I'd get a fecal done pronto.

Sorry but I am going to have to strongly disagree with you on this one. Have you ever heard of a RI so severe that it sounded like a cell phone vibrating on a pile of change when you walked by? Probably not. I'm pretty sure if an animal did have an RI that severe and was still alive that it would be exhibiting some sort of mucus or fluid from either the mouth or nostrils. Symptoms that haven't been described yet.

I wil agree with you about the possibility of parasites causing symptoms of that sort though. Heather and Owen also seem to have experienced what I was refering to in my post. It really does sound like multiple loud forced burps. The female I had do it only did it 3 times and has never done it since. It's a very scary unnatural sound to hear coming from a boas cage.

[JuliusSqueezer]

Nick...Yes I have. Seen it and dealt with it personally. If you ever deal with a large boid with LOWER respiratory (pneumonia) you will too. It sounds more like a deer blowing if you have ever heard that though. Kind of a raspy snort cough. No watery snot...just deep down thick yellow congestion. Evidence eventually will get sprayed around on the walls and glass a bit but really no snot bubbles and excess watery mucous like you see in upper RI. Take in a green burm and within 3 or 4 years or so when it's immune system goes bye bye, you will fully understand what I'm talking about. I'm not in any way saying this is the case with this particular animal. Just something to look for if it continues and more evidence arises. In every case mentioned, including this one, I strongly suspect parasites pupating into the gut but I wouldn't be so bold as to discredit other possibilities just from reading a brief semi-vague description.

[HaloedSatan]

Brett and Nick-
Thank you both for your posts. I'm sure one of you is right... I just hope it's nick for the health reasons. I think parasites would have been one of the last things I would have thought of because he is a captive bred het albino. I'll check the next poop for worms, etc.
Again, thanks to the both of you.

[JuliusSqueezer]

Captive breeding means nada. Even in the most sterile and well kept breeding stock, worms that burrow into the blood intending to get to the lungs to grow and pupate don't always make it there. Some will end up lodged in muscle tissue or other organs where they are usually benign though some might get to the brain or heart and cause some problems there but usually they just go undetected. No wormer designed to kill intestinal worms will ever harm them nor will they ever show up on a fecal exam. Sometimes they do show in blood smears. Usually though, they just go undetected.

Ever see a kitten or puppy that doesn't at some point have to be treated for worms even though it's never been outside or exposed to anything that should have "given" it worms? They get them from their mom to the point that it's almost a given. These worms that live benign lodged elsewhere in the body instead of the intestines for some reason seem to often be drawn to amniotic fluid and/or that new flow of rerouted blood to the birth canal through umbilical cords...where they infect developing offspring. So even a well kept mom with clean fecal exams can and do still infect their babies. That's the theory I heard from one of my vets. I don't buy it 100%. I don't think the trapped worms ever move. I think they just drop eggs in the blood and so shared blood is tainted with worm eggs and they get to the offspring that way.