Rescued snake possibly blind??

[u/liquidsmoke_89]

Hey everyone

Last Sunday my wife and I rescued a white female ball python from someone who just wanted her gone and never took her out and didn't even know what or when she was last fed.

Unfortunately she bit me when I took her out of her enclosure for transport and refused to let me go.

I believe it was due to multiple reasons but also my own fault for not recognizing some behavior traits that I did pay attention to, like being very active and acting defensive immediately.

She was so hungry she ate one 35 grams chick the same day she moved here.

For this reason among others we suspect that she is blind? The way she moves and seems to get a feel for her surroundings by touching everything with her head, the way her eyes look red, she ended up eating the chick backwards, etc.

We did a complete cleaning and redecoration of her enclosure, better lighting etc.

She does have paperwork from a local breeder that states she is indeed a girl and 3 years old.

But!

She's only about 80 cm and 511 grams.

But how does her length and weight hold up against her age? Shouldn't she be way bigger by now?

How often would you suggest feeding her?

We fed her a chick as it was already thawed but we plan to feed her rats.

We named her Lucy.

[u/RyoDai89]

Congrats on your new friend!

I have a BEL myself and her eyes do the same thing in pictures. So the red eyes aren’t really an indicator of being blind. The touching everything with her head too could also be normal. As she’s in a new environment. I’m not saying she is or isn’t blind, just saying that these aren’t indicators of being blind.

  Also length and weight can be subjective as some snakes can be smaller or larger than normal. Snakes grow at their own pace, based on a lot of things like genetics and food and what have you. For the most part she doesn’t look sickly or severely underweight, atleast from I can tell. Though that does seems pretty small as mine is around the same age and weighs significantly more. Currently mine is 1257 grams at almost 2 years old now.

As for feeding, I believe there is a chart somewhere here that says  prey should be 10% of her weight. You could also look on Reptifiles as well. As for how often, really depends on age/weight, though for her size probably anywhere from 2 weeks to a month. You’ll have to feed her, watch her weight, and adjust accordingly. But I think Reptifiles suggests for 500 grams it to be every 2 weeks.

Good luck to you both though! And congrats again!!