Can't Stand the Excitement

Wow, Mr. Wibbles' life sure is action-packed and full of excitement, isn't it? When I started this blog, oh Faithful Reader, I had no idea what unchartered waters we would sail together as we saw life through the eyes of a ball python with wobble head. Would the genetic condition dominate his existence? Would it mess up his ability to slough off his sheds? Would he continue to strike at prey at angles perpendicular to the direction that the prey was actually located relative to him?

No, no, and sometimes, but only rarely.

I need a new picture of Wibbles on this blog. Remember the missing scales from the last posting? They reappeared with the following shed, no problem. He has gained weight steadily (see chart below). He passed quarantine and now lives in the 4th floor tub of a 5-slot adult rack (Jason's Jungle, great product, great guy) with some ball python neighbors (June, Ward, Mez, and Daphne). He still has a hide, the same fake rock hide he's always had, and when he's hungry he sticks his head out of it and faces the front of the tub. I dangle the prey and he strikes from the hide and pulls it on in. Two days later his head surfaces again, but I feed him once per week now. He's eating one frozen/thawed weanling rat per feeding. I've started breeding my own rats, but he's still working his way through the ones from RodentPro.com.

He shed yesterday, a perfect one-piece effort, then weighed in at 416 grams. Tonight he feasts.

Here's the chart I promised (I think you can click to enlarge). Until next time!

Wounded

When I checked up on Mr. Wibbles today, I was in for a nasty surprise: he was missing scales on his nose. Here is the picture:

I do not know for certain how it happened, but I have a suspicion. Mr. Wibbles has been splashing his water around. He has a heavy water dish and cannot move it, but I have seen him splash down into it. This is forcing me to completely clean his tub out on a daily basis and put dry substrate in (newspaper).

The thermostat probe at the basking end has no suction cup, and he has been known to move it around, sometimes too far toward the center which threatens the thermoregulatory balance (did I just make up a word?). To secure the probe into place, I use duct tape. I've never had trouble with this before, but then again, I've never had wet enclosures before. My guess is that the excessive moisture weakened the adhesive just enough for him to pull the strip of tape off the bottom of the tub (perhaps he was caught by the probe wire and pulled free), then later when he was sniffing around he got it stuck on his nose.

When I cleaned his enclosure tonight (because it was soaked) I noticed the probes were not secured. When I lifted his hide, I found feces and urates, plus a small strip of duct tape.

For first aid I rinsed him off in the sink under a gentle stream of warm water, patted him dry with a paper towel, and applied a small quantity of triple antibiotic ointment to the exposed area. Mr. Wibbles didn't flinch once, and did not seem to mind the ointment the slightest bit. He was so calm that I was able to apply it with precision, avoiding his nostrils.

Nevertheless, I'm worried for Mr. Wibbles.

Mr. Wibbles Makes a Friend

A buddy of mine who professes a fear of snakes stopped by last night to set up some music gear in the basement. He has read this blog before and knows all about my "special needs snake." I offered to show him Mr. Wibbles and he said sure.

I offered him the opportunity to back as far away as he wanted, but he bravely stood by as I opened Mr. Wibbles' container. After watching me hold Mr. Wibbles for a minute or two, he was able to bring himself to touch the scales. Quite a feat for an ophidiophobe.

Mr. Wibbles went on to eat another mouse F/T fuzzy last night. Struck true first time, great double-coil.

Mr. Wibbles Gets His Wobble On

Shot two videos last night and finally caught Mr. Wibbles doing his thing. It's nothing too dramatic, actually, since his symptoms have lessened somewhat in the past four weeks. In fact, if you didn't know what to look for, you wouldn't even know he suffered from the spins.

Video #1 - He doesn't give us much here. Guess he forgot to read the script.

Video #2 - Finally we get a wobble, but in this case it's more of a "flop." He's a flopper...he's got the Flops. Mr. Flopper.

Oh yeah, he finally defecated, but I haven't weighed him yet.

Weight Gains and Humidity Woes

I found Mr. Wibbles in a bit of a fog this morning, quite literally. His water dish was empty, the sides of his tub were wet so that I couldn’t see inside, and his paper towel substrate was fairly moist. Clearly his humidity is too high. Tonight I must solder more holes into his tub to allow some additional moisture to escape.

While I was cleaning and sterilizing his habitat this morning, I went ahead and weighed him. He came in at 106 grams, a 51% increase in the 25 days we’ve had him. He hasn’t defecated, however, so we should expect some decrease when he does. Still, this is encouraging news for Mr. Wibbles, who is growing by leaps and bounds.

Here is his weight chart:

...and the Oscar for Worst Director goes to...

...hand me the envelope please...

...Scott Duncan!

[applause, boos]

[Lofting award to jeers] Thank you, thank you!

I shot some video of Mr. Wibbles eating two mice last night. My hope was to show Mr. Wibbles demonstrating his wobble. Unfortunately, the director had no control over his cast and Mr. Wibbles moved and ate as if he did not have the defect. Additionally, when presenting the first mouse to the lead actor in the drama, the director inadvertantly placed his hand between the camera and the star. Viewers can still see the strike, but the scene is framed less than optimally.

Nevertheless we hope you enjoy the show!

Camera Problems

Mr. Wibbles never did finish his shed. Most of it ended up coming off in one piece, with two or three shreds of it separated from the whole here and there. However, there is one piece about 3/4" long that remains stuck under his chin. Why that didn't come off we're not sure, but my wife thinks that with his wobble he might have an especially tough time rubbing that spot against a surface (since he frequently tilts his head at a slight angle). I've got his humidity around 85%, but since that doesn't seem to be getting the job done we may end up having to help the guy out.

So we fed him on Wednesday night and I was all prepared to film the whole thing for posterity when the new digital camera I own reported that the batteries were exhausted. Normally I would take the camera's word for it, but I've had this camera for less than a week and I've already changed the batteries twice. This time I used a flashlight to check the batteries and wouldn't you know, they were fine and had plenty of life left in them. The camera takes several different kinds of batteries; right now we're using AA's. We'll switch to lithium or one of the other options and see if that does any better, but something tells me I'll be taking advantage of the warranty.

Long story short: no pics or video of the feeding. So here are my observations.

(1) He ate 2 F/T (frozen/thawed) mouse fuzzies.

(2) He nailed them both on his first attempts.

(3) If you only saw the strike that took the first mouse, you'd never know he was a wobbler.

(4) Before taking the 2nd mouse, he was lurching around spastically. Think of the movie "Men in Black", and the bug in the Edgar suit. He moved around like that, tilting/flopping to the left, then abruptly jerking around the other way, his head not quite positioned the way it should be. It got more pronounced when I dangled the mouse for him. Possibly he was scared, but eventually his tongue flicked, he suddenly became quite calm, and a second later he struck perfectly and double-coiled.

I was quite proud.

History

This is Mr. Wibbles' feeding history since we acquired him:

Today Mr. Wibbles weighed in at 89 grams. That's a 19 gram increase in 15 days, for a 27% increase in weight since we acquired him. That's good news!

Bad news: after I pulled him out of his container and put him on the scales, I noticed that he's in the middle of a shed. His eyes hadn't even gone blue yet, so I had no clue he was nearing shed. Worse, despite humidity levels consistently in the 70- 75% range since acquisition, his shed is coming off in broken pieces. I have no explanation for this because steady humidity in this range has always resulted in perfect, unbroken sheds in all my other snakes. My fear is that this is an early shed in response to mites that are now known to have come into the house with two new snakes, even though those two snakes are in a separate quarantine area and I have taken precautions with housing, bathing, clothing, etc.

I just double-checked his environment and see no evidence of mites. I'm treating his enclosure all the same. In the meantime, to help him with his shed, I'm giving him a bath. It turns out he's rather funny in the bath. I got a bit of video, but I didn't capture the beginning. When I put him in the water, he didn't move at all...he just floated for awhile, his body locked into position, as the water twirled him in lazy circles.

I will leave him in peace now to complete his shed.

Introductions

On March 25, 2007, I went to a reptile expo and purchased a 6-week old, 70 gram ball python (python regius) named Mr. Wibbles. Mr. Wibbles has a genetic make-up that expresses itself in a set of phenotypic traits including an overall gold coloring, a thin black pattern along the spine with offshoots down the side suggestive of a spider-web, and a speckled white pattern extending up the sides from the snake's belly. This specific genetic "morph," to use the term popularly used in the exotic reptile pet trade, is known as a "spider" or "spider ball."

This is Mr. Wibbles:















Mr. Wibbles is also a unique project for me because he has a condition unofficially known as "wobble head." Sometimes this condition is called "the spins." A wobble-head (or "wobbler," from here on out) seems to lack a developed sense of equilibrium and will exhibit the following symptoms:

• The snake will frequently hold its head sideways.


• The snake may crawl around at odd angles or upside down.
  
• The snake won't immediately right itself when turned upside down (and will sometimes sleep upside down).
  
• The snake's head will wobble like a small branch in a breeze. In severe cases it may shake.
  
• The snake may crawl around in loops or circles.
  
• The snake may have difficulty striking target prey.
  

Little is known for certain about this condition except that it appears to be related to the gene that gives spider morphs their appearance. There is some anecdotal evidence which suggests that the condition is more common in spiders who exhibit brighter colors, or whose signature spider pattern is more striking than that of others of the same morph, but no studies have been done and the correlation is not well documented. Spider ball pythons can produce offspring without the condition, and vice versa. It is not yet known whether spiders, when bred to ball pythons with co-dominant genes (such as the "pastel" gene) to create designer morphs, will produce wobbler offspring.

The degree to which symptoms manifest differ from snake to snake. Some breeders insist that wobblers can outgrow the condition, and some owners have written in herpetocultural forums that their own wobbler spiders have done just that. Other breeders believe that it is a life-long condition.

Mr. Wibbles' symptoms are less severe than some I have seen in photographs online. He does have trouble with his equilibrium and is slow to right himself, he does have a tendency to weave sideways from time to time, and he's not what you'd call a good shot when it comes to striking his prey. However, he spends most of the day right-side-up, moves deliberately to thermoregulate, and does manage to hit the prey more often than not, although grabbing the prey when he hits it is another matter entirely. Most significantly, he does not spend hours doing torturous and apparently painful loops and spins like some spiders that have the condition have been known to do.

I will use this blog to share my observations about Mr. Wibbles as he grows. I will publish his weight, feeding habits, defecation, and sheds. I will post pictures here as well as links to any video that I take to show his behaviors. I will also post links to any information I find about wobblers. My hope is that others may use the information published here to make informed decisions about whether to acquire and even breed spider morphs, given the potential risks.

Stay tuned.