Went to the vet -- some things he recommended

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ebbanflo

Im a new owner and have no intention of changing my BPs heat gradient at night,

that reptile vet sounds scary

---

My thoughts exactly, man. it definitely threw me for a loop when he said it, and they left a message for me today asking if I'd "updated her temps to their recommendations" like I don't even want to pick up the phone now, thank you bye.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

there is no need to drop temps at night. what would this practice even provide?

"well tttaylorrr, it mimics their natural environment!"
there's nothing "natural" about my snakes living in boxes in my bedroom with thermostats, heaters, fake plant and temperature gauges.

"They're not the smartest, so some stuff you kind of have to do for them or they hurt themselves."
how exactly does dropping temperatures help them?
"what if they're hot!?"
they know where their cool side is, and regulated temperatures make any "too hot" scenario non-existent.

stay far, far away from that vet.

---

THANK YOU FOR SAYING WHAT I WAS THINKING I've been frustrated for two days now trying to articulate everything and this pretty much sums it up. Don't like him. Don't want to go back. :/

Here is my two cents on most vets. You need them to prescribe medicine and you need them to do cultures. A real reptile vet is hard to find. A reptile vet that knows specific things about whatever you are keeping is next to impossible to find. I had some pretty in-depth discussions with one of the best guys in my area recently and it just reinforced my belief that a vet may know more about the anatomy and biology of an animal, but it is the large keepers and breeders that you should really pay attention to when it come to husbandry and behavior. Many of the "reptile vets" don't keep one snake let alone a large collection. All they know is read from a book. I have read a few vet textbooks on reptiles and I will tell you that scientifically we know very little and the books tend to be pathetic when it comes to a particular species. Though this particular vet is probably one of the best vets I have dealt with in the reptile arena, I still ended up getting in a heated discussion about white rats. He insisted that feeding ball pythons brown rats would make them feed better because that is the color of the prey in the wild. I told him that ball pythons fixate on a prey item, and that while a brown rat may induce a wild caught animal to eat, most of my captive bred animals have never even seen a brown rat and they eat and grow just fine. Personally I don't believe the whole color of the rat thing, I think their fixations have more to do with smell as anyone that has converted from mice to rats has experience with. I have successfully taken care of hundreds of animals of the same species. Who know more about husbandry, me or the vet that has never had a pet ball python?

Long story short, if you need lab work done, meds prescribed, or attention given to an injury you cannot handle, see a vet. Otherwise talk to the experienced people here.

I can't imagine having a vet talk to me/treat my pet like that. I'm still a new owner myself and definitely not a genius on the subject of reptiles or snakes, but I would be very upset, and would definitely take my business elsewhere. If that's not an option, I understand though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Starscream

One thing he kept insisting adamantly was that I needed to drop the hot side 10-15 degrees at night, which seems super counter-intuitive to me. With the two different heat ranges on either side of the tub, it encourages movement and exercise and they get a sense of autonomy in picking what temperature they want to be at. When I said I had two different sides, he shot me down and immediately replied with, "They're not the smartest, so some stuff you kind of have to do for them or they hurt themselves." Which is just. Why would you let a reptile be in conditions in which they could hurt themselves?

So, here's the question: is there supposed to be a drop in temperatures at night? From what I've seen on the forum and various other sources, that seems to be an older style of doing things that isn't endorsed anymore. Why is that?

---

This sounds like a very judgemental veterinarian and seeing as your husbandry as you describe it is more or less "on point", he could have conveyed his thoughts in a much friendlier manner. As previous posters have noted, there are some great reptile veterinarians, but they are hard to find. For every good reptile vet, there are probably 10 poor ones. Veterinary school has also sadly become "politicized" to some degree and misinformation is being spread even among medical professionals in the veterinary field. For example, most vets will recommend spay / neuter in dogs, even though it has been shown that spaying or neutering a large breed dog too early shows a marked increased risk of osteosarcoma.

That said, there is some merit to what your vet has suggested. I will start by saying a drop at night time is not necessary for good husbandry in the vast majority of cases. The animal will thrive, especially following feeding with 24/7 access to an appropriate hot spot. In some cases of multi-animal encloses it can even be necessary as co-inhabitants will establish a "basking schedule" based on order of dominance. That said there are two things I will note:

1. If a snake has access to an area that is dangerously hot, there are many anecdotal reports of snakes burning themselves from prolonged contact even thought common sense would dictate that an animal burning itself would just move to a cooler / non-burning location. This is not to suggest you had a dangerous location in your enclosure, just that there is some merit to the "snakes aren't the smartest" mentality.

2. A night drop can be of merit to snakes fighting off certainly infections. Many virus strains have an optimal temperature at which they reproduce best, for example, reptarenaviruses (such as those heavily suspected of being the cause of IBD in boid snakes) reproduce best at around 86 F. This is right around thermoregulatory temperature for most reptiles so it is easy to see why they are a natural host. If a reptile hugs its hot spot 90% of the time, while create for digestion, it is also the perfect temperature for viral spread. I believe there was a report of someone with an ill snake and their vet recommended removing his heat for 24-48 hours and see if that helped him improve. The rationale for this suggestion is based on temperatures preferred by a variety of viruses. Thus, if the snakes body temperature is dropped to ~70-75 F, it can probably fight off such an infection easier. Now, there are a variety of viruses that have different optimal temperatures, so having a night drop that modulates the snakes temperature somewhat may help a snake in fighting off certain infections. I don't know of an academic study that has weighed the pros and cons of a night drop in captive conditions, but I suspect there are pros and cons to both approaches.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tttaylorrr

there is no need to drop temps at night. what would this practice even provide?

"well tttaylorrr, it mimics their natural environment!"
there's nothing "natural" about my snakes living in boxes in my bedroom with thermostats, heaters, fake plant and temperature gauges.

"They're not the smartest, so some stuff you kind of have to do for them or they hurt themselves."
how exactly does dropping temperatures help them? how does NOT doing so hurt them?
"Well what if they're too hot!?"
they know where their cool side is, and regulated temperatures make any "too hot" scenario non-existent.

stay far, far away from that vet.

---

I second this...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan

Here is my two cents on most vets. You need them to prescribe medicine and you need them to do cultures. A real reptile vet is hard to find. A reptile vet that knows specific things about whatever you are keeping is next to impossible to find. I had some pretty in-depth discussions with one of the best guys in my area recently and it just reinforced my belief that a vet may know more about the anatomy and biology of an animal, but it is the large keepers and breeders that you should really pay attention to when it come to husbandry and behavior. Many of the "reptile vets" don't keep one snake let alone a large collection. All they know is read from a book. I have read a few vet textbooks on reptiles and I will tell you that scientifically we know very little and the books tend to be pathetic when it comes to a particular species. Though this particular vet is probably one of the best vets I have dealt with in the reptile arena, I still ended up getting in a heated discussion about white rats. He insisted that feeding ball pythons brown rats would make them feed better because that is the color of the prey in the wild. I told him that ball pythons fixate on a prey item, and that while a brown rat may induce a wild caught animal to eat, most of my captive bred animals have never even seen a brown rat and they eat and grow just fine. Personally I don't believe the whole color of the rat thing, I think their fixations have more to do with smell as anyone that has converted from mice to rats has experience with. I have successfully taken care of hundreds of animals of the same species. Who know more about husbandry, me or the vet that has never had a pet ball python?

Long story short, if you need lab work done, meds prescribed, or attention given to an injury you cannot handle, see a vet. Otherwise talk to the experienced people here.

---

...and this.

Very good stuff here, thanks tttaylorrr and JodanOrNoDan

Yeah, dude sounds like a quack. Might require a commute, but you can do better.

I'm very lucky to have my exotics vet and a rapport with her already over the roommate's cats (which since I am the homemaker, I am the main caregiver for). Know she handles some big snakes at this practice (assistant mentioned a 12' patient), and also does field vet work for the Army. Figure if she can handle 12' she can handle my calm lil 3' guy.

Vets often have strong opinions, just like all people. When a vet lets their opinion override evidence and other valid methods of keeping, that's a problem.

Dropping the temps 15 degrees below the minimum could even be bad for the snake. A healthy animal would probably be fine, but it's not "good" for them in any way(except isolated cases mentioned above).

Use your vet for needed things. Yes, a vet will usually insist on an exam in order to do basic stuff like fecals. Let the vet examine the snake, nod your head, hum in a thoughtful manner and thank them for the advice. Then go home and do what works well for you, that you know from experienced keepers works great for keeping pythons and don't get bothered by the vet's opinions.

It's been nearly two months, and I'm not going to a vet anytime soon, but today I spoke with some local folks in the reptile scene about vets. They all overwhelming recommended a guy that I now plan on going to in the future for Maze's yearly check-up.

And then something interesting happened. I mentioned the name of the practice I went to, and someone who used to work there popped up. She said that the attitude the reptile vet displayed is not only typical of the practice, but also just an inkling of how they treat their employees. So now I'm super glad my instincts screamed at me that his guy is Bad News, because I do NOT want to support a business that treats their employees that badly.

Random update, but. Dang. Was not expecting that, but I'm not exactly surprised.

Get a new vet. Not because he told you what you did not want to hear, because of how he told you it. Vets are 50% psychiatrist, 50% mind reader, and 50% doctor.

Every time I hear about ball pythons native environment I roll my eyes. We do not and cannot keep them in 100% their native environment because we keep them in captivity in teeny tiny houses. This means we need to keep conditions that are safe and close to natural conditions for their continual welfare, yet we do base care on native conditions to get baselines.

Ball pythons do not benefit from temperature drops because in their native habitat they do not encounter wild temperature swings like say a North American snake does. As such there is nothing in a captive setting that needs to be done to provide well being to a evolutionary survival trait like what say a western diamondback rattlesnake needs. As such there is no genetic predisposition to nightly temperature drops because that does not exist where they evolved at.

All ball pythons do is thermoregulate like every other ectothermic reptile. Excluding what you do to get them in the mood for love ;)

I would have been out of there at breaking the skin. And I would have been snarky back the entire time lol. That's just me though.

The vet sounds like a douche canoe without paddles. Ugh!