I'm new here....*waves*...But not to herping. Been keeping geckos, lizards and various snakes and such for about 15 years now, off and on. Mostly on a foster basis recently.

I just adopted the female BP late Sunday evening. She's 9 years old and is missing part of her tail, up to her vent from prior horrible neglect. I had her all ready to go. I noticed just a few hours after getting her home, she began yawning alot and keeping her head propped. That made me worry. I asked the folks who kept her if this was normal for her...They said yeah, it's normal, don't worry. If she starts wheezing and getting clogged up, then worry. Well...I continued to worry like the mother hen I am. This morning I took her to my vet out of an abundance of caution and lo and behold she did have a little bit of a cold. She was gummy in the back of her throat and a little irritated. Not enough to warrant anti-biotics, but enough to keep her in triage to see if the gummed-up-works situation improves.

I feel so bad. I've been keeping difficult critters for YEARS and 48 hours into getting a rescue BP, she's gotten herself a cold. I can't help but feel like its my fault, but I have FOUR thermometers, a hygrometer, a thermostat, warm hide/cool hide, ample fresh water changed twice daily...I'm just hoping it was stress related or she was already coming down with something and the stress of everything made it worse. I hope I can get her feeling better so she won't need antibiotics.

Uhg. I've raised her temperatures and will be giving her a warm steamy bath and coupage her a bit later to see if I can help. But I also don't want to stress her out at the same time, even more than she already has been...But I guess necessary evils and all

I've never had a snake with RI and luckily hers isn't full blown because I caught it so soon, but if anyone else has any words of wisdom, feel free to pass them on. My vet said to give her a few days to see if upping her temps, warm steam baths and letting her relax a little will help.