* Ball Python RI Question*

Ok- couple months back, had a ball with an RI. Got her on Baytril and under a heat pad for about 2 months and it cleared it right up.

Went in to check on all my babies and found a problem. The ball in question just got done shedding yesterday and she hasn't eaten for about 3 weeks. May be due to her being paired up on and off. Anyway, went in to check on her and she was laying in the back of her bin like usual with her head looking a little upward. She was open mouthed breathing, and yawning quite a bit. So, I removed her from collection and put her in my room (next to mommy :rolleyes:) and she is under a heat pad with a bigger water bowl. My temps are as follows: Daytime-92-93 and Night time drop: 82-83. This is because the Flexwatt is reading these temps but they are inside the bin on the bedding/paper and this makes the actual hot spot in the bin a little a few degrees cooler than what the actual Flexwatt is reading. Also, for water bowls I use the PVC Couplers adults get 3" with a Solo cup as a water dish and the babies/juvies get a 2" coupler with a solo cup as a water dish. Humidity is at 60-65%.

Question is: Is there a place I can get Baytril online? Or does something work better? The last time I went to the vet she charged me an arm and a leg for the appointment alone. Wondering if maybe there is a better medicine then Baytril? I see they have Baytril 2.27% 20ml wondering if that would do?

Also, since she has been paired up, could a give everyone a little oral suspension (vet had me do it oral last time) to everyone in the collection just to make sure I 'kick it before it comes'?

Any advice would be awesome.

There is no place I have heard of for Baytril online. Baytril is starting to fall out of favour where I am the vets tend not to use it anymore as there are more and more resistant bacteria. I am at work and cannot remember the name of the drug that she is using for RI currently. I would not give advise about drugs that is a vets job. I would suggest a culture be done so the drug that would be most effective be used. Unfortunately this is often a costly operation.

The bigger issue is why are you getting RI cases? Most of the causes are environmental triggers so it more often points to an event (power failure ect.) or husbandry issue. If is often linked to ventilation or lack there of, I would strongly suggest checking everything, if you find something that got missed you can correct the problem before you have a third sick snake.

Did you read the RI sticky?
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ons-The-Basics

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

There is no place I have heard of for Baytril online. Baytril is starting to fall out of favour where I am the vets tend not to use it anymore as there are more and more resistant bacteria. I am at work and cannot remember the name of the drug that she is using for RI currently. I would not give advise about drugs that is a vets job. I would suggest a culture be done so the drug that would be most effective be used. Unfortunately this is often a costly operation.

The bigger issue is why are you getting RI cases? Most of the causes are environmental triggers so it more often points to an event (power failure ect.) or husbandry issue. If is often linked to ventilation or lack there of, I would strongly suggest checking everything, if you find something that got missed you can correct the problem before you have a third sick snake.

Did you read the RI sticky?
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ons-The-Basics

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Thank you for the information. Yes, I just read it right now. The only thing that I can tell is that I started lowering my temps for breeding season. I used to keep everyone at about 92-93. Then when breeding season came about, I started keeping day temps at 92-93 and at night down to 82-83. That is about it. Not sure what went wrong. I have her with me now with a bigger water dish and on a heat pad. Thinking maybe this will help. First snake to get sick was my other female normal. They gave me liquid Baytril I think it was 2.27% and 0.1ml daily for a month. I also had her in a bin under heat pad away from the others. Then I got a pastel from a friend of mine who had an RI (wheezing,popping) good thing I quarantine! I put him in a bin, under another heat pad. 2 days later. GONE. Each time with him and the other female I put them on newspaper, in a bin, under a heat pad with NO water bowl except for 2 times a day. Morning for 20min and evening for 20min. Cleared it right up with that Pastel. With the first normal, it took awhile but that is because I didn't catch it until it was already to the bubble stage.

So, with this girl here, I have her in a bin, with a water bowl, under a heat pad. Not sure I'm going to leave the water bowl in there as with the other two the minute I would put the water bowl in there or "mist" the bin they would instantly sound much worse (louder wheezing,etc)

Gonna take her to the vet tomorrow and see whats up. Any info you have on any other medications to try? Should I be using injections? The vet will not do a culture until I try a medicine that way I don't have to wait for the test to go out. (Goes out of state she told me). Last time she gave me the Baytril as a ORAL injection through the mouth. Doesn't actual injection work better??

There could be multiple causes but breeding season stress coupled with cooling too quickly can cause issues. I'd honestly pull anyone who was having issues for the season. As for the drugs. You should see a vet. It's just the way it is. Again there is a reason for the Ris and something needs to be tweaked so you dont Have these issues. I second the vet doing a culture. It's just part of the process.


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I'm going through a RI issue as well with a new addition snake that came with it (we think the transit stressed her out and made it more apparent as I didn't notice anything when we picked her up) and I took her to the vet and stuck her on injectable Baytril. Worked like a charm for her and she's still on it (30 days - hoping that that will kick it to the curb so she doesn't get it right back). I would recommend doing a culture on your snake (my vet quoted the culture at $200-250) but that may be a good route to go especially if she's having reoccuring RIs. I also didn't do any changes to the humidity levels and bumped her temps up and it really helped.

Keep us posted.

Also...I am also curious about purchasing Baytril online: I'm ASSuming that the big breeders that work with many, many snakes would be able to aquire it to treat their snakes right? For some reason it seems strange to me that a big breeder/exotic seller would need to take every snake with an RI to the vet to get prescribed meds when they work with so many snakes? I know I'm niave: it just seems like they would be able to get all kinds of meds to treat their animals.

I am fairly certain that big breeders likely have a contracted vet that likely makes regular visits and will supply what drugs are needed it would be silly not to. Usually the drugs you can buy without a vet are weaker than normal and likely to do more harm than good.

the drug my vet often goes to is Ceftazidime it is particularly good against Pseudomonas. Which is likely why she uses it.

^ That makes sense, thanks!

I checked the bins and the little gauges I have (standard from petsmart) say that the temp is 10 degrees less then what my thermostat and flexwatt are saying. Then, the humidity gauge is saying that my humidity is at 60. I put the humidity gauge out of the bin and the gauge reads 65 humidity. The temp gauge reads 82 in the bin the thermostat/flexwatt is set to 92! So, that means that at night when I have been dropping the temps to 82 that it has really been 72 in the bin! I don't understand this. I don't think its my thermostat I got it on bigappleherp.com http://www.bigappleherp.com/BAH-1000-Thermostat I've only had it since June of this year and the flexwatt I highly doubt is bad. Anyway, I had the rack by a window in the room, so I covered the window with a big blanket and nailed that sucker up there. Then, I moved the racks to the walls where they are not by the window. I removed the aspen bedding and put my unprinted paper and the PVC 3" bowl back in there and tried the thermostats again. The humidity is reading at 55-ish and the temp is at 82. I don't get it! I've been working on it for about 2 hours now! As far as the CURRENT female with the respiratory infection, she is in my room on aspen bedding under the heat pad with a big water bowl. She is kinda standing over it. THE SNAKE THAT HAD THE RI A COUPLE MONTHS BACK IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT SNAKE, NOT THE SAME ONE. One of the males in the rack, since the day I got him, will drench his whole bedding with water. He always does this. There are no mites or anything like that, I have checked numerous times, plus I clean the bins religiously. I don't get it. Also, my caramel albino was in shed and today we checked on her, and she was so ready to shed, she for some reason couldn't get it off. So, we had to take it off for her and it came off fine, not really in pieces. It was like she was ready to shed but it couldn't get lose on her own. The one that has the RI at the moment, she shed yesterday but same thing, we had to do it for her. I'm so so sad, I hate seeing them suffer. :tears::tears::tears::tears:

instrument accuracy is a huge issue. I don't know your t-stat and can't find any specs I would have to guess that at the price point is a +/- 2ºF as is typical for so many cheap digital units. If you figure a degree or more over the set point and same under it is easily possible to see 95-88 and that is if everything is perfect. Cool ambient temps can make a shift even larger especially in racks. Racks just do not perform in cool temps they are very difficult to get contestant temps.

On off units in cool rooms often have over and under shooting issues. I usually suggest proportional units in cool rooms. I don't know if you are running your rack in a 80º room or something lower. It is a real issue to get a accurate thermometer. Typically ones that are accurate are very costly. My advise is to buy a few (5) and check them against each other and only use the ones that are reading the same.

i had the sam problem with my rack i set up my temps based of of the temp on my flexwatt and set my tstat to 90 when one of my other snakes got sick i went to check temps inside the box and it was more like 77 luckly my house is generally above 75 so i ended up setting my tstat at 99 to get a 90 inside (and i use newsprint )so that tells you the tubs really do a great job of not getting warm but i fixed the temps and now reading 92 inside the tubs with the t stat at 100

There are many other antibiotics that are effective against both gram negative and gram positive bacterial infections. Your vet should be able to recommend one. Do not take any dosing or medication advice from any one on any forum. We are not vets.

As Alex stated, more and more vets are veering away from Baytril as more and more bacteria are developing resistance to it.

While I understand that your vet wants to begin treatment now due to the lag in getting culture results, I am unlear as to why she just doesn't prescribe your animal an antibiotic that has a broad range of effectiveness while the culture is processed.

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Originally Posted by Abaddon91

i had the sam problem with my rack i set up my temps based of of the temp on my flexwatt and set my tstat to 90 when one of my other snakes got sick i went to check temps inside the box and it was more like 77 luckly my house is generally above 75 so i ended up setting my tstat at 99 to get a 90 inside (and i use newsprint )so that tells you the tubs really do a great job of not getting warm but i fixed the temps and now reading 92 inside the tubs with the t stat at 100

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How true you are...I actually think that is the problem I am having. I have my house at about 72-75. When the AC is on I shut the vent to the room, when the heat is on I open it. I live in Texas and some days it can be hot in the house and some days it is SUPER cold. I don't get it. Anyway, I went in this morning and the thermostat (dial NOT digital) is at 82. So, I moved it up to 92 to see if when the Flexwatt reached that point, I would have 90 hot spot. Wrong, the thermostat NEVER shut off, never reached that point. So, I put the little round (PetSmart) temp. gauge on the flexwatt and it said 90. So, I put that same gauge in the bin on top of the hot side and it says 86-88. :mad: Very frustrated. So, I figured obviously the thermostat is a bad. So I decided to plug in my other thermostat (zoomed 500r NOT digital) and it seems to be doing ok for the time being. I'm just so upset because ever since winter time months came I can't get my temps/humidity right! I misted the bins with some water and the humidity is at 75-80. So, we are good there. Hope I don't have to mist 10 times a day as that would be a pain in the butt.

Couple questions....can you buy a humidifier that has a on/off once the room reaches a certain %. For instance say I want the room at 80% to get a 70-75% reading in the bins, is there a humidifier that will let me set it at a certain % like a thermostat? Then shut down, and turn back on when the room drops below the set %???

Also, does anyone know if Flexwatt goes bad or goes out or anything like that. I'm assuming it doesn't "lose its charge" since its all electrical BUT with my luck anything seems to be possible!

Also, if anyone is selling a Helix PLEASE let me know, I need to sell these Thermostats I have and get a HELIX!!

Thanks you guys for all the help! :gj:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skiploder

There are many other antibiotics that are effective against both gram negative and gram positive bacterial infections. Your vet should be able to recommend one. Do not take any dosing or medication advice from any one on any forum. We are not vets.

As Alex stated, more and more vets are veering away from Baytril as more and more bacteria are developing resistance to it.

While I understand that your vet wants to begin treatment now due to the lag in getting culture results, I am unlear as to why she just doesn't prescribe your animal an antibiotic that has a broad range of effectiveness while the culture is processed.

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Last time I took my OTHER female in, she said that Baytril will do the job. I told her, don't you think I should get a culture? She said, "No, I've seen this plenty of times, Baytril will do the job". Then she handed me a small little bottle that she poured baytril in and put the label on it. It was once a day ORALLY 0.1ml until gone (lasted about 2-3 wks) My female is 2093 grams and I just didn't think that 0.1ml was enough. Oh well. I followed directions and sure enough about a week after the meds were gone she was all better. I did keep her in her bin on top of paper. She was placed over a heat pad. I didn't giver her a lot of humidity as I didn't want to cause the bacteria to grow and instead would rather 'dry it up' as the vet told me is best. She didn't have a water bowl in there because as soon as I would put it in she would tip it over. Vet said to take the water bowl out and offer it 2 times a day morning and night for about 20-30min each time to give her a chance to eat and not become dehydrated as Baytril can cause that in a snake and not having any water would be VERY dehydrating. So, I did all that and now she is back in collection and eating none stop. She is always hungry now. Which I am very happy about as she was on a 2 month fast.

I have heard that sometimes if you just put the female with the RI under a heat pad that she will be fine. So, currently the one that is sick is under a heat pad still with her Aspen bedding and a big water bowl to get some humidity going in there.

Last time I was at the vet I asked her if I should shoot them all up with a quick little dose as a 'prevention' of it INCASE others have it but not showing signs. She said she didn't know and would ask another person she knew somewhere out of state but she never got back to me. :(

Heat us a interesting beast. The ambient temp will have a huge impact on temps. Typically racks do best in STABLE warm room temps (78-80ºF) the other issue is probe placement. Most will place the probe on the flexwatt and regulate the 'output' temp this is not going to be the same as the temp inside the tub. Typically as the ambient temp changes the interior tub temp will also change. (why stable room temps are needed) Add that heat rises so the top slots often run warmer than the lower spots. The cool room will compound this and the 'drop' will be greater.

Solutions... I'd replace the T-stat with something a bit more reliable and easily set. My first choice would be herpstat but that is me. The second thing and easiest solution is to regulate the room with the rack to 80ºF and keep it there. It is possiable to regulate a rack in cooler room temps but that is a much bigger job. I have my rack in a cool room and have thoughts on that but the best advise is to keep the room warmer and be done with it.

http://www.kaz-canada.com/kaz/humidi...m-450-deedCAN/

This is mine I like it. It auto shuts off at 60% and the guage is about 5% high on mine but basically it is ok.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

Heat us a interesting beast. The ambient temp will have a huge impact on temps. Typically racks do best in STABLE warm room temps (78-80ºF) the other issue is probe placement. Most will place the probe on the flexwatt and regulate the 'output' temp this is not going to be the same as the temp inside the tub. Typically as the ambient temp changes the interior tub temp will also change. (why stable room temps are needed) Add that heat rises so the top slots often run warmer than the lower spots. The cool room will compound this and the 'drop' will be greater.

Solutions... I'd replace the T-stat with something a bit more reliable and easily set. My first choice would be herpstat but that is me. The second thing and easiest solution is to regulate the room with the rack to 80ºF and keep it there. It is possiable to regulate a rack in cooler room temps but that is a much bigger job. I have my rack in a cool room and have thoughts on that but the best advise is to keep the room warmer and be done with it.

http://www.kaz-canada.com/kaz/humidi...m-450-deedCAN/

This is mine I like it. It auto shuts off at 60% and the guage is about 5% high on mine but basically it is ok.

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Thank you so much, I really appreciate all your help. I am in the process of looking at all that stuff now. Thanks again. Big help! :gj: