Pro-biotic vs. flagyl

Some people are saying to dose my normal ball with a pro-biotic, because the flagyl is to strong and kills the good bacteria. What are your views? I know more about flagyl than I do about pro-biotic. What do you guys think? Oh and the reason being is her weight loss, her lack of eating since Oct 8th, and her one time lime green poop she gave me. Her weight loss is of concern to me because she has gone from 1545 grams to 1380 grams.

I am personally not comfortable with giving my snakes any meds until I have a diagnosis. A few months without food or an irregular defecation is usually not cause for concern, but the two combined with weight loss is a good indicator of a parasitic infection, and appropriate meds for battling parasites depends completely on the type of parasite. Vets generally only charge $50 or less to run a fecal float and give you a definitive answer.

Yeah, don't go after the flagellates unless you actually know they're there. Fasting and weight loss are normal this time of year. And lime green poops are actually urates.

(To date I've had to treat three snakes for flagellates: two in early 2009, one in early 2010. It does involve a month or two of rebounding as the digestive tract recovers, and my 2nd pied spent several extra months producing The World's Smelliest Poops. But everyone recovered their appetites within a couple weeks of the first treatment.)

Flagyl (Metronidazole) and probiotics are two completely different things. Flagyl is an antibiotic that is used mostly to kill anerobic bacteria and certain flagellet protozoans (hence the name) probiotics on the other hand are supposed to add beneficial bactera to the gut of the animal, it doesn't actually kill any bad bacteria, the idea behind it is to increase the good bacteria so that it crowds out the bad. I've used flagyl many times to good effect on my snakes, it's actually fairly safe and hard to overdose your snake if you can follow directions. I personally don't think probiotics are worth a damn for snakes.

That much weight loss is really not that normal, and green poop is really not normal either. I would recommend a vet visit. You're vet can give you the correct dosage to use if they think flagyl is the correct med for your snakes problem.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Flagyl (Metronidazole)

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I didn't know flagyl was metronidazole! Well, learn something new every day I guess. In that case, I have actually used it for my puppy's giardia (only parasites I've dealt with in snakes are pinworms, treated with Panacur). Definitely not a fun process, but it does the job.

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Originally Posted by Crazy4Herps

I am personally not comfortable with giving my snakes any meds until I have a diagnosis. A few months without food or an irregular defecation is usually not cause for concern, but the two combined with weight loss is a good indicator of a parasitic infection, and appropriate meds for battling parasites depends completely on the type of parasite. Vets generally only charge $50 or less to run a fecal float and give you a definitive answer.

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I'm semi new to owning snakes am i'm not really sure on dosing snakes with meds either. I know about the meds but I don't know if I should being the time of year. And being it was a one time thing.

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Originally Posted by loonunit

Yeah, don't go after the flagellates unless you actually know they're there. Fasting and weight loss are normal this time of year. And lime green poops are actually urates.

(To date I've had to treat three snakes for flagellates: two in early 2009, one in early 2010. It does involve a month or two of rebounding as the digestive tract recovers, and my 2nd pied spent several extra months producing The World's Smelliest Poops. But everyone recovered their appetites within a couple weeks of the first treatment.)

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Yeah see, I know about flagyl, i'm a vet tech but for dogs and cats! I really don't know much by the snakes. She gave me this small like dime size light lime green squiggly poop then 2 days later this huge poop and that was that. I've never seen it again.

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Flagyl (Metronidazole) and probiotics are two completely different things. Flagyl is an antibiotic that is used mostly to kill anerobic bacteria and certain flagellet protozoans (hence the name) probiotics on the other hand are supposed to add beneficial bactera to the gut of the animal, it doesn't actually kill any bad bacteria, the idea behind it is to increase the good bacteria so that it crowds out the bad. I've used flagyl many times to good effect on my snakes, it's actually fairly safe and hard to overdose your snake if you can follow directions. I personally don't think probiotics are worth a damn for snakes.

That much weight loss is really not that normal, and green poop is really not normal either. I would recommend a vet visit. You're vet can give you the correct dosage to use if they think flagyl is the correct med for your snakes problem.

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I know flagyl and I know pro-biotic. I'm new to snake owning didn't know which was better for the snake. Her green poop was one time dime sized and after that a huge normal poop. She hadn't eaten since oct 8th, till i did some trickery 2 days ago and offered her a gerbil, tagged and swallowed in 45 seconds :), Thank you for your reply. :gj: