Snakes keep getting sick..

Not entirely feasible fitting 26 snakes (that's over 85' of snake) in my mom's little toyota. Not to mention I'd be getting definitely ill snakes in close contact with probably well snakes.

plus that.. discount or no, I don't think I can afford 26 cultures. I will talk to the vet and see what he can do for me and what he thinks the best course of action is.

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

Dont know if this is feasible but maybe you should try to take all of the them even the ones not showing any symptoms currently and have the cultures ran on the whole collection.

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The problem with that is that you'll probably find bacteria in animals that are showing no outward symptoms of illness. It's kind of like gut flora ... there will always be some measurable amount of bacteria in most snakes lungs ... it's the strength of their immune system vs. concentration of the bacteria that makes them sick ... cultures can't measure "how heavy", only present or not present and my guess would be that they would almost all come back present ... even in snakes that would otherwise never show any outward signs of illness.

I've been down that road and it doesn't lead anywhere.

-adam

Your right, just thinking out loud....

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

cultures can't measure "how heavy", only present or not present and my guess would be that they would almost all come back present

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Nice I like how you put that......I might use that someday :)

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Originally Posted by Mendel's Balls

Nice I like how you put that......I might use that
someday :)

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Well, don't credit me ... I wouldn't want to ruin my rep by letting anyone think I was getting soft on the "all science, no marketing" crowd. ;)

ROCK ON!

-adam

In the past we would have numerous animals come down with a bug. We would randomly select ones to have a culture done. In your case 3 or 4 would be a good sampling. If all test positive for same bug treat entire group at same time. My be required twice to kick it. Good luck with them. No sense in hauling them all around and stressing the further.

Well I think all vets must see each individual animal before they can prescribe an antibiotic. I wish I could just do that, Nancy..

Vets do it all the time. I have done this numerous times in the past when multiple animals came down with same symptons. Now, if your vet will do it is another story. If you take as good of care as you claim, it's not likely that they are coming down with different problems. I don't see where it would hurt if you had a perfectly healthy one get the meds. When you have as many as you do it doesn't seem to work well unless all possibly infected animals are treated. If you play around to long trying to treat each indiv. snake it can be passed back and forth , never clearing totally up till you lose your snakes from stress.

Yeah exactly.. that is what I fear.

Hm.. anyone else have input on this? I would like to do this if my vet would let me.. the issue is though I've got some tiny baby colubrids, I can't imagine giving them injections. I know I asked about this before.. but I read about giving baytril orally or in the drinking water as an antibiotic. Could this be an option.. can other antibiotics be given orally?

The only thing bad about putting it in the drinking water is you never know are they getting enough or to much?? I don't know if the particular med can be given orally, but if so you would be better off giving it by syringe in the mouth. Some antibiotics are safe to put in drinking water others need to be measured closer to be safe.

If you end up dosing entire group make sure you let vet know the kind of snake and an exact weight for each. It is very important that they get as much info on each. I took a little notebook to the vet with weight, ages, etc