Vet (Dolla) Bill Bottom Lines?

There’s a lot of talk of vet bills on this site. Sometimes it’s in the form of a head’s up to a new member, “Make sure you locate a good reptile vet before you need one,” or, “You should make sure you have money set aside in case you need a vet,” things of that nature. Occasionally, there’s someone spouting off about how if you can’t afford X amount of dollars for a vet, you’re not prepared to keep the animal.

My question is, What does X equal?

What’s that magic number that you have to be willing and able to meet in order to be considered “responsible”?
Obviously there isn’t a right answer, only opinions so let’s see if we can share our opinions like grown ups.

I’ll go first!

Honestly, I don’t know what I’d spend to save my snake. If she needed an office visit and some antibiotics or something and could be good as new for $100/$150 I’d do that. If I took her to the vet and was told that we can try ______, if that doesn’t work then we’ll try __________, I’d probably stop trying if the first blank didn’t solve the problem. I wouldn’t sink several hundreds of dollars into her. I’d have her euthanized if she had an issue that I deemed too expensive to correct. “Too expensive” in this case is probably in the neighborhood of $200.
For my cat, I’d spend a little more. Probably up to $500. To save my bird, a little higher than that.

Of course this is all kind if “in general”. There may be circumstances where I’d consider spending more, or wouldn’t think of spending as much as the numbers I give here.
I just want to know how other peoples’ minds work when it comes to this topic. It seems that most would remortgage their house to save their 15 year old dog! That’s definitely ok, I just want to see how we all compare when it comes to when and where to draw that line.

Unfortunately this topic will probably get heated but....

While I would love to spend thousands saving any one of my animals I would not be able to do so unless the vet would be willing to work with payments. Tops I could go right now would be in the $500 range. That would be any of them, they are the same to me and each one brings me joy in their own way.

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Hmm....thats a very difficult question to answer. I guess it depends on how attached the person is to the animal, and how much money they can afford, and the probability that the treatment would get that animal back to health. An old roomate of mine had a dog that had a bad heart murmur. She prob spent over $6K over the two short years of his life, taking him to heart specialists and ER vet visits to save him. He was just a puppy when she got him, and he didnt live very long. Personally, i wouldnt have sunk the much money after the first heart visit. I would have just put him down. Currently, we have a male butter thats been fighting a skin infection for over a year. Hes been to two different vets, and almost $500 later, hes gets better, then gets worse.....very slowly. I cant afford to put any more money out, to take a chance on him never getting better. Id be different if it was all better now, and he was back to great health. But i feel like the money was spent "in vain". I have spent money on other pets in the past that were saved, and lived out the rest of their happy healthy lives. I think everyones situation is different....based on whats more important, and what they can afford. Its hard when the responsibility for an animals life or death is put into your hands. But, for me personally, whatever the choice was, im not to condemn that person for the choice they made...as long as they cared, and tried to do the best they could with what they had.
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It's going to vary widely based on income, savings, location, value of the snake, prognosis, etc.

Case in point - I have a 26 year old retired show horse. While he's healthy enough for his age, if he needed colic surgery he wouldn't get it, he would be euthanized as performing any kind of surgery on a horse that age is extremely risky, never mind the expense ($8000-10,000). If he were 20 years younger he would get the surgery.

So, with ball pythons you have everything from people asking how to most cheaply keep and feed their newly-acquired normal and begging for home remedies when an RI shows up because they can't pay a vet until the next paycheck, up through people buying breeding snakes that cost more than some of us make in a year. Guess which snake is going to the vet, and which isn't?

I honestly don't know how much I would spend on a vet for any reptile, as I haven't had an issue come up yet (knock on wood). The most I have spent on a dog was $1500 which is a lot of money for me, luckily the first remedy worked. That being said $1500 was pushing it, I don't know how much more I would have put up, now my step mom on the other hand spends massive amounts of money on her pets (i personally think she is crazy) but her puppy got loose and hit by a car, $10,000 later he was back home and is now 16 years old and has had a healthy life, her theory is if they animal can get better and have a quality life then spend the money.

I would have to say it would depend on the situation, prognosis, your budget at said time, said animals age. Lots of factors. That being said, if I had the funds, I would spend whatever it takes. There would be situations where say a very old animal needed surgery, that I may not do that. But, I spent thousands on a 4 year old cat with congestive heart failure. Vet visits, medications, cardiologist visits. Just to buy him more time, as much as I could. He was given maybe up to a year, with no chance of getting better. He only made it two months before we had to let him go. I loved that cat to pieces. That one tore me up. I teared up typing this, thinking about him. I would have spent any amount to save him. :(

Earlier this year I spent well over $1200 on a corn snake female who became eggbound a whole two years after being paired by the previous owner. This corn is a regular old albino and not even an animal I hoped to one day profit on via breeding. I spent that money to save her because I felt it was my responsibility as her owner to do so and I felt she deserved the chance. She's fully recovered and doing fine. I would have spent that much and more on any of my other animals if there was a chance to save them and have them live normally, but that's just me.

For me, I don't have money just sitting for vet bills. And this is before we were expecting.

I have ways to treat things like RIs and what not, having good friends in that business helps. But for like cancer or tumors or something, the snake would be put down.

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It would depend on whats wrong with the snake and what the prognosis is.

"Oh your snake has a RI, it'll cost ____ for the meds and visits to heal him." I don't have a problem with that, even if it were a couple hundred dollars. If i had the money available i'd probably spend even more if there was a pretty good chance they could help my snake.

"We have no idea whats wrong with your snake, we can run Tests X, Y, and Z to check for this or that but we may not get a definite answer and those visits and tests alone will be about $600..." Um, yea, sorry. I love my snakes but i'm not made of money. If that were the case i'd probably seek out help from experienced members on here and see what they advise and if they've ever dealt with anything similar. There are a lot of knowledgable people on here. If the snake didn't seem to be improving at all (i'm not even sure how easily it would be to determine that or how long i would wait...) then i would euthanize it.

The same pretty much goes for other pets too. Well, the only other pets i have are T's and a dog. I don't think you can take a T to the vet lol. For my dog i would spend a bit more. Even then, unless it was a very positive prognosis, i wouldn't spend thousands on vet bills.

This holds true even for myself lol. If i got cancer or some awful disease i wouldn't spend thousands of dollars on more tests or treatments. I wouldn't wanna burden my family with a ton of bills if there was a good chance i was gunna be checking out. Thats just how i am lol.

First of all, I'm impressed and pleased with the calm and well-thought-out replies.

For me there are certain key points:
1) It depends upon the malady in question, I would have no issues with spending $200-500 treating an RI (or other "straightforward" illness) in any of my snakes.
2) The value of the animal in question. I hate to say this, but it is a factor. If we're looking at something complicated or unknown (something involving perhaps lots of invasive testing or an exploratory surgery) I'm more likely to opt for a more aggressive/expensive approach on a very pricey animal than I would with say a male normal.
3) All of my "at home" animals get the same consideration regardless of species, meaning my Scotties get the same level of financial consideration for vet needs that any of my snakes do. Horse stuff is a bit different since I have medical/colic insurance on mine, so they get treated very aggressively (although like bcr229 said, age and performance level is a factor).

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Originally Posted by Badgemash

Horse stuff is a bit different since I have medical/colic insurance on mine, so they get treated very aggressively (although like bcr229 said, age and performance level is a factor).

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LOL good luck finding any company willing to cover medical on a 26 year old horse.

That brings up another point when taking a snake to the vet when it has an RI - how many vets won't bother with a culture because it can double the total bill? While many folks here probably have a few hundred to put into a sick morph even if it meant living on Ramen for a while, the vet also sees cheap snakes with advanced RI's whose owners tried at-home treatments while the animal got progressively worse. So, rather than sock the owner with a $350-400 bill - and pretty much ensure the next time the snake gets sick the owner will most likely just let it die - they charge $100-175 for the visit + antibiotics, and save the expensive cultures and treatments for the very few cases where pushing Baytril + Fortaz isn't enough.

I would probably spend a few hundred on my snakes if they fell ill *knocks on wood*. They really aren't all that "valuable", but I took on the responsibility of their care when I purchased them, including vet bills. That said, I have been burned in the past by vets ($2000 jacked up bill because the vet decided to try to save my dog's dew claw... which later fell off :/ SMH). So I'll use my own discretion on what treatments and tests I'll approve if the need arises.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

LOL good luck finding any company willing to cover medical on a 26 year old horse.

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LOL too true, I can't find any that go over 18. And I totally agree with you on the colic thing, I doubt a 26 year old would make it out of anesthesia let alone recovery (although I truly hope you're never confronted with that). I just meant that if god forbid a tendon bows or something like that we'll be doing stem cells, blocks, and every other therapy I can throw on that leg, because I'd be paying the deductable only and not the full cost. So while I'd technically be racking up $15,000 or more in bills I wouldn't actually be paying that amount, which unfortunately is not the case for my dogs or snakes. If one of them needed intervention at that level I doubt we'd be able to do it. I just meant it to say that the horses get a different level of financial consideration than the dogs or snakes do because of the insurance, but the dogs and snakes are equal in my eyes.

For me, it depends on the issue, treatment, cost, and the animal. I also take into consideration quality of life before, during, and after treatment.
Hate to say it, but while my animals are equally cared for, they are not necessarily equally loved. Level of sentiment plays a pretty large role here.


And if it's minor and not life threatening/altering, I'll diagnose and do the treatment myself.


My dogs:
I would spend thousands of dollars for them if needed if they could continue to live a quality life.
So if a dog needed anything from basic care, surgery or emergency care, I would pay for them.

If my dog had cancer, for example, I would not do chemotherapy or radiation treatment. I would do just enough to make the dog comfortable, but I wouldn't pay for a treatment. I used to work in a cancer treatment ward of my University's vet school. It was not a pleasant sight. Many of these animals looked so unhappy and were in constant pain from the side effects of the radiation treatment. There would be no way I would put my own dogs through that. That's just pure human selfishness, in my opinion. While it would allow the animal to live longer, that quality of life would be lousy. I would rather have my dogs be at peace at home and live a shorter life than put them through that treatment and be uncomfortable and in pain.

My ferrets:
I've already spent thousands of dollars on them throughout the years.
I'll pay for a vet visit, basic care (vaccines), certain surgeries, and emergency care. Ferret medicine is pretty tricky to know when to accept or pass a treatment. You have to be knowledgeable and weigh the pros/cons. And not many vets are ferret knowledgeable.

90% of American ferrets get cancer. I just had to put down my 7 year old boy last month, but he lived the last 2 years with adrenal cancer and later insulinoma. If he didn't have insulinoma, he could have lived many more years just fine.
The most I do for cancer is to give them drugs/hormone implants that slow down adrenal tumor growth and cancel out clinical symptoms (hair loss/energy loss/etc etc). There are surgeries to remove tumors, but it's not worth it. The cancer almost always comes back and some ferrets do not survive the surgeries. It's very hard on their bodies. It's better just to not do the surgery and to make sure your ferret is happy, comfortable, and not in pain.


My rats:
I'll do a at home antibiotic infection treatments. But beyond that, I would just euthanize injured or sick rats.


My snakes:
These guys have a higher initial purchase price compared to my dogs and ferrets, but I think I would be less willing to spend as much money on them compared to my dogs and ferrets. Of course I would pay for a vet visit and testing. But paying for treatment will vary depending on the issue. I'll treat for infections and I have paid to treat rescues' RIs. But I also wouldn't pay for unnecessary treatment if the snake wouldn't live a quality life after.
If a female was egg bound, I would get her treated.

But overall, it really depends on the medical issue....

I agree it all depends on the person money and such. 4thesnakeslady points out about our butter male ball python, sadly II can see putting out ,ore money on a issue that keeps coming back up(hoping it don't).I am not sure I could just be one that says oh your sick and your worth less than $xxx then your going to be tossed in the fridge cause I don't want to spend the money to take care of you . I am willing to do without a lot of things if there a chance to save a animal ( with in my means of money/care) SO if it ment I only got 20 minutes naps for a 3 week period to drain a turtle/shell from a injury I sleep in 20 minute intervals.

Well, I'm a cheap s.o.b. but I didn't hesitate to drop 1300 when one of my dogs attacked the other. But as otthers have said, it depends on the problem and available cash. I can't sacrifice paying rent or power, or something the wife or kid need. But ramen and mac-n-cheese have been the menu on occasion. I do what I can when I can.