Butterball gets shots, Arkose does not (plus Vet info!)

[Spechal]

I picked up some mice from a local breeder for a second time as the first round was great as were the prices. Now I am paying for it and starting some rat colonies (ASFs are after so many cannibals and bites). By paying for it, I mean Vet bills. All in all, aside from freaking out, it was worth the knowledge gained.

Arkose (Pied - Female) started to get some runny poops after eating a few adult mice. I knew it wasn't normal but thought I would see if she would recover. Her next poo was good but then the next had blood and was incredibly rank. I started my hunt for a good Vet as my normal Vet knew the basics and I wanted someone hardcore. Butterball (Super Pastel Butter - Male) then started to have rank and bloody stools. The night before I was able to get into a Vet, Arkose passed nothing but blood.

Butterball being only 196g and without a fresh fecal from him, was started on Baytril immediately ... 0.9cc/day for 10 days. I gave a snake a shot for the first time last night (first time for everything) and after squirming around and resisting, he finally just stopped and took it like a champ. Arkose, also without a fresh stool was almost put on Baytril as well. After checking her out and not seeing any visible sign of systemic infection (she has a slight one from the mouse that bit her) and weighing 656g, gave the Doc a big ol' deuce that was runny with mucus but ... NO BLOOD! He took a fecal sample and is having the lab run various tests on it; results pending.

Anyways, super freaked out but he assured me they would both be fine. Neither of them are allowed food until they heal/are off medication.

Here is what let's me know he is my forever herpetologist. He's bred ball, carpet and reticulated pythons for many, many years and only stopped because he couldn't deal with people "only having $100" for a $100 snake and no preparation for housing. In addition to my concerns, he checked for mites, cloaca issues, mouth rot, scale rot; the whole nine. He also taught me a trick for probing that came up no where on probing videos or people showing me. He said to start the probe ball tip inverted to the way you usually would and then invert the probe back down to easily clear the scale protecting the cloaca. He believes popping is far more dangerous to the sexual organs and believes it to be more invasive than probing.

We also talked mites. He believes P.A.M. should be banned (due to massive mis-use) if not already and firmly stands by using one or two sprays of Frontline onto gloves and rubbing the snake from neck to tail; never on the head. Leave it on for 30 minutes or so and then rinse it off with Dawn® soap (not detergent). He also trusts Natural Chemistry but finds Frontline (the spray bottle only) far more effective and gets rid of mites faster. I started to debate it with him; the pros and cons, but after he told me that he's never had an issue when used as directed (his directions, not the bottle) and has even used it on his Black Eyed Leucistics that sold for $10,000 at the time, I STFU.

Back to rodents and bloody stools ... he said that captive pythons should be on a substrate they cannot ingest (paper towels, newspaper, etc...) or a coconut substrate that is fine grained enough to pass easily. Wood based substrates, even aspen, when ingested are a common cause of bloody stools as the bark fibers can tear up the GI tract. Even healthy looking rodents can also cause bacterial infection, carried from the fur or internally, and can cause loose stools or bloody stools but generally the snakes immune system will allow them to recover without intervention. Multiple bloody stools is the time for antibiotics or blotchy pink spots anywhere on the snake, but usually visible from the underbelly. That's a sign of a systemic infection that needs addressed. He was not concerned about the infected wound on Arkose's neck from the mouse, especially since her stool was blood free and she showed no other signs of infection or lethargy.

We talked for probably two hours over the course of seeing both of the snakes and I am positive I missed relaying some information. So ... if you have any questions I would be happy to tell you what he said or ask him. If you are in the KC area, I definitively recommend Dr. Micheal Tarrant (DVM, CVA, CVCH) of Arbor Creek Animal Hospital. I also showed him my collection via photos and when I showed him the Black Pastel Hypo Clown floating around, said he may very well get back into breeding.