I took Bella to the vet.....

Giving the injections is up to you. I would not do it but I a not a vet so I can't give you advice on that. IMO, taking a snake, or any herp to the vet is a waste of time and money unless you know there is something wrong with them. The only time I take a snake to the vet is when I know I need a med. Usually I am pretty much the one that says what they need and I am just using the vet to get the drugs. The main problem is that the vast majority of so called herp vets have no idea what they are talking about. There are some good ones out there, but they are definitely the exception.

$200 is a little ridiculous in my opinion for what they did as well.

You wanted to know if she is healty, and now you REALLY know she is healthy. Why do you want to keep going?

She will eat when she is ready, If you dont give her some space, you are gonna keep on stressing her out.

I spoke with the breeder and have decided to not give her the injections and just let it ride out.

I will give her up to 10 days to regroup and offer her an ASF to see what happens then.

I agree it was a rediculous amount to pay but I didn't want to question the "professionals" opinion - I sure didn't have the answers so I hoped he would.

Injections are not needed at all if theres no infections or sickness.

I would of thought the vet would of given you some Flagyl for the purpose of appetite enhancer it does with balls. Flagyl never hurts when given proper dosage and sometimes increases feeding responces

I mentioned the flagyl to the vet because I have heard that mentioned here on the forum but he didn't seem to think that was a solution.

I don't know, I think I learned a good lesson on what to let a vet do - I should have stepped in and stopped him from doing all this stuff to my snake - I just thought he would know better than me.

He is supposed to be very knowledgeable since he once head up the Reptile Division of a major zoo.

Go figure.

Yeah if anything I would give the snake flagyl injections to stimulate appetite.

If you can get a hold of a live ASF I would give that a try. I wouldn't try a gerbil, they are expensive and sometimes hard to find. And if your snake imprints on them you are stuck feeding them. If anything, a ball python will choose an ASF over a gerbil since ASFs are their natural food source and gerbils are not.

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

Yeah if anything I would give the snake flagyl injections to stimulate appetite.

If you can get a hold of a live ASF I would give that a try. I wouldn't try a gerbil, they are expensive and sometimes hard to find. And if your snake imprints on them you are stuck feeding them. If anything, a ball python will choose an ASF over a gerbil since ASFs are their natural food source and gerbils are not.

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Just so ya know Flagyl is done orally not injections.

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Originally Posted by RichsBallPythons

Just so ya know Flagyl is done orally not injections.

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dur brain fart.

1. Personally I feel that the fortaz was/is probably not nessicary, however you should always finish out the injections once started. If for anyreason something is brewing and you do not finish out the course of anitbiotics you can help to develop resistant strains of bacteria. Fortaz is pretty safe so I would not worry about it hurting your snake.

2. Tube feeding in my experience is not as stressful as even assist feeding if done properly. I actually prefer to tube feed than force feed. The tube is a small diameter and fexible it will not hurt your snake. In the case of your animal tube feeding may jump start her metabolism and she may get hungry. Every snake I have tube fed has turn around and began eating on their own.

3. The only other thing I would have done or asked about was adding flagyl to the food mixture and possibly fenbendazole. If she was mine I would continue the injections and offer an irresistable live asf or gerbil in 10 days or so.

I think you should of been weighting the snake and if the snake was losing too much weight then a trip to the vet is the correct thing to do. but if the snake was decent size and wasn't losing weight, I think you panic and put your snake thru a stressful day at the vets. and if she was getting ready to go back on feed again. It might be longer now with the added stress. I had a snake that I had to give injections to, every time I came into my snake room that snake knew that shot was coming and went into a ball. she didn't do this before getting the shots and now many months later doesn't ball up when I enter the room. talk about stress, she didn't eat for a couple more months after the shots.