Most Expensive BP Vet Bill?

I took my 3 month old baby BP for his first vet exam yesterday, mainly because he had a rectal prolapse that retracted back in by itself (I helped to push the last bit of remaining tissue back in). He also had mites and was a bit small.

I paid:
$84 for initial exam
$48 fecal exam
$40 ivomec injection
$15 panacur oral meds

For a total of $210 after taxes :O I do admit I felt gouged for that price but in the end, I just want my baby to be healthy. He was the closest vet that could see him at the time I was available because I had exams in the morning.

People take their cats and dogs for yearly exams and it doesn't make sense to me that reptile owners don't take their snakes which live twice as long as cats/dogs.

What is the average/most expensive BP vet bill you've ever paid?

Wait isn't Ivomec dangerous to Reptiles??

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Originally Posted by led-zep

Wait isn't Ivomec dangerous to Reptiles??

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Going into the clinic, I do not know much about reptile medicine... At the time, I trusted his judge because he is a professional after all. I did Google ivomec afterwards and read that its controversial to give to reptiles. :/

$84 for an exam? Thats a little high imo. Usual is around $40-50. I paid more on a friend's bp that had an RI though. I think it was around $400 with take home injections for 2 wks. It's been a few years since I took that one in though. I didn't want it to pass the ri to my girl, and we were cleaning my friends cages then inwas coming home and cleaning my girls. In the end he lost that snake because of not cleaning more thoroughly. It was after I gave the injections every day.

Wow, I only had to pay $70 to have my cat neutered! Luckily my vet is in business to save animals & not make money.

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Originally Posted by kittymeow

I took my 3 month old baby BP for his first vet exam yesterday, mainly because he had a rectal prolapse that retracted back in by itself (I helped to push the last bit of remaining tissue back in). He also had mites and was a bit small.

I paid:
$84 for initial exam
$48 fecal exam
$40 ivomec injection
$15 panacur oral meds

For a total of $210 after taxes :O I do admit I felt gouged for that price but in the end, I just want my baby to be healthy. He was the closest vet that could see him at the time I was available because I had exams in the morning.

People take their cats and dogs for yearly exams and it doesn't make sense to me that reptile owners don't take their snakes which live twice as long as cats/dogs.

What is the average/most expensive BP vet bill you've ever paid?

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My most expensive BP bill was about the same as yours. Except it was a rescue with a respiratory infection that needed a culture and antibiotics.
My initial exam was $60 and that's on the higher spectrum of exam prices for exotics. Your fecal exam is pretty high in my opinion too. It usually runs $10-15. I go the a vet school to get my animals treated and they tend to be more expensive than private practices. When I went to a private practice for the same treatment(minus the culture) with a different pair of rescues, it ran about $70 total including exam and antibiotics for two snakes.

thats overpriced.

for example, i know in Germany you can buy fecal exam kits for maybe 10-20 dollars depending on brand. they contain instructions on how to take a sample, an adressed envelope, something to put the sample in, and a coupon or something for the lab expense and a form to fill out. You buy the kit, take the sample, mail it to the lab, and they will do the testing and mail you the results back. real lab work. and the price of the package covers it all.

and thats exactly how vets do it, the racket is that vets get this stuff cheaper and often only vets have access to these products. many labs only deal with professionals and just dont produce such kits.

but with that in mind i know whats going on when a fecal exam costs 48 dollars: big time money making. and the injection and oral meds are also questionable. i mean, if there is no infection or something and you worry about vitamins and nutrients, just put a pill in the mouth of the next frozen thawed meal. or if you feed live, there are vitamin pills that rhodents will eat like candy. and a can of provent-a-mite deals with mites and lasts an eternity, pills or injections are unnecessary when its just mites.


-----that being said----

a while back the issue with the female deserts that you cannot breed got me wondering how much it costs to get a female BP sterilized. So i made a thread asking if someone knows how its done and what it costs, and the prices i got back were in the 4 digits, many significantly above 1000 dollars. turns out its a major surgery that is really difficult.

right around 1100 dollars on my daughters tegu. good thing we had a good year selling ball pythons!

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Originally Posted by kittymeow

People take their cats and dogs for yearly exams and it doesn't make sense to me that reptile owners don't take their snakes which live twice as long as cats/dogs.

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Completely off base in my opinion...you're comparing apples to hammers...if your husbandry is on par, what would you expect to get out of a vet visit???

edit: This applies to healthy captive bred balls...not imports...

One of my cats cost $150 to get fixed and from my experiences 40-50 $ is the average vet bill. $210 isn't horrible,but maybe for what you got done and what he charged you,could have probably been $30 cheaper

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

thats overpriced.

for example, i know in Germany you can buy fecal exam kits for maybe 10-20 dollars depending on brand. they contain instructions on how to take a sample, an adressed envelope, something to put the sample in, and a coupon or something for the lab expense and a form to fill out. You buy the kit, take the sample, mail it to the lab, and they will do the testing and mail you the results back. real lab work. and the price of the package covers it all.

and thats exactly how vets do it, the racket is that vets get this stuff cheaper and often only vets have access to these products.many labs only deal with professionals and just dont produce such kits.

but with that in mind i know whats going on when a fecal exam costs 48 dollars: big time money making. and the injection and oral meds are also questionable. i mean, if there is no infection or something and you worry about vitamins and nutrients, just put a pill in the mouth of the next frozen thawed meal. or if you feed live, there are vitamin pills that rhodents will eat like candy. and a can of provent-a-mite deals with mites and lasts an eternity, pills or injections are unnecessary when its just mites.


-----that being said----

a while back the issue with the female deserts that you cannot breed got me wondering how much it costs to get a female BP sterilized. So i made a thread asking if someone knows how its done and what it costs, and the prices i got back were in the 4 digits, many significantly above 1000 dollars. turns out its a major surgery that is really difficult.

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Yes, we all want to keep our little hoard of textbooks, notes, research papers, and the like all around us in the hopes we will be able to function half as well as someone formally trained...but in the end that causes one to become the worse kind of dependent, that is, too dependent upon oneself...I think we all make that mistake at some point in some way, shape, or form. You might as well get out there mate, forget about the "kits" and learn formally if it means that much to you. Yes, I know, it's a lot more of a hassle...being autistic and an introvert by nature my first few years of high school were $hit, but it gets better...it gets even easier in college when you can just study all day and not look like a prick...but do not neglect to learn the most important rule, one I know for a fact I wish was made obvious to me by insight much sooner rather than later, support your damn classmates/colleagues/teachers/companions/etc...even if there ideas weird or totally disagree with what you find, it sounds weird but seriously support the people that you have come to love even if you hate each other...there is nothing wrong with being against the grain within reason of course, but outright not supporting your friends...that's low man and I am probably the most guilty of it in the board right now. Then of course you just have the spend about a decade learning how how to learn for an eternity, but it's worth it in my romantic mind, of course we're all bound to hit the ground a few times in our quest to reach the sky. Just pay the damn money to the vet, we are all in this together, it's all paper anyway.

Oh $hit...I just de-railed the thread and mis interpreted a post...this is what happens when you have been studying calc & bio for two days straight and 4 hours of sleep...I am running on sweet tea, Red Bull, & dreams so sorry about this one guys.

For an exam fee a necro and medicine for a RI was $95

Earlier this year I spend $1200+ on a corn snake that needed invasive surgery or she would have died. Recently I spend $600+ on a ball who started showing abnormal health issues who's now on antibiotics and making improvements so far. Overpriced? Maybe, but the vet is a specialized exotics vet who knows more about reptiles than anyone in my area so I didn't mind shelling out the price. Would it have been cheaper/easier (maybe even smarter) to just put down these two animals? Yes, but they each had a chance to live a normal and healthy life so I decided to pay the price and give them that chance. To each its own: I have no regrets spending the money I did/have on these animals and would do the same for any others in my collection (the corn is fully healed and doing great and I have high hopes for the ball).

I called a few places. The cheapest quote I was given for just a basic exam was $69 and the highest was $109 just for an exam (and these prices are before taxes). I live in a big city so I thought prices would be less.


Personally, I don't have a lot of experience with reptiles. I asked a lot of questions concerning my BP and the treatments, but in the end, I didn't know what was best so I trusted his judgement. :(

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Originally Posted by sho220

Completely off base in my opinion...you're comparing apples to hammers...if your husbandry is on par, what would you expect to get out of a vet visit???


edit: This applies to healthy captive bred balls...not imports...

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Haha everyone is entitled to their own opinion! :P Personally, I, myself, have only been to the doctor once in the last 10 years for a check up lol. But it's only because I know I'm healthy because it's my own body and I can feel when I'm sick or not well but I know people can get sick and some symptoms don't show up for years. My husbandry was always in the right ranges yet my BP had parasites and mites and I only had him for a week and a half! :( Plus, animals can't talk so I guess I just want to be reassured that they are okay! :)

Anyway, I was mostly referring to sick reptiles/BP and people still not taking them to see a vet. I see people posting really horrible things happening to their animals like for example "My BP got a really bad burn! Should I take him to the vet?" :O

I paid $980 for my male BP. Had a mild RI, but wasn't showing classic symptoms. He had bloodwork, antibiotics, the whole 9 yards. Some people would do that for a $50 snake, but I would!

One of my BPs had parasites and it cost about $150 for the exam and the medication.

As for cats and dogs, most ordinances require you to give your animal a rabies vaccine every year, so that's probably where yearly cat and dog visits come from.

Seems legit to me.

The price for a healthy snake is far less than a sick one. But if you are going to pay big $$$ for you vet, just make sure your vet is able to handle the more difficult situations a well.

I work at an exotic vet it's 47$ for an exam and $22 for a fecal. So this def seems high to me. I know my chameleon has pinworms and my vet said it can be dangerous to give it panacur so we watched to see if he felt better. Plus most reptiles have a small amount of pinworms.

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Originally Posted by kittymeow

I live in a big city so I thought prices would be less.

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Cost per square foot to lease commercial space and local taxes are typically higher in more populated areas. That translates into higher overhead costs for the vet, which means he has to charge you more just to stay in business.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sho220

Completely off base in my opinion...you're comparing apples to hammers...if your husbandry is on par, what would you expect to get out of a vet visit???

edit: This applies to healthy captive bred balls...not imports...

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Amen.

In Michigan I called around and every vet I talked to charged $70-80 for an exam. The Michigan State University vet school was higher yet. They also charge for every single thing they do in contrast to my dogs vet who doesn't always charge the exam fee or throws in nail trims etc. I took my Boa in for a case of mouth rot, needing surgery, antibiotics, topical treatment, and 2 follow up visits totaling $600. I gladly paid it because I felt terrible that she was paying for my own personal problems.

The reptile vet here charges $80 per visit PER animal.

I know it's around $200 for a culture :/

Boy, reading this makes me glad I am as fortunate as I am.

My very good reptile vet charges $30 for an office visit, fee usually halved for returning customers. I took in a rescue BP for a wicked RI, and the exam and injections were about $60 total, and when I called and said she was still symptomatic, they let me have a second round of injections without another office visit.

That being said, I'm a bit leery of the Ivermec injection. What did the vet say it was for? I don't care much for vet's who do not explain as they go, or for ones who just routinely give medicine without a real reason.

Gale

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Originally Posted by kittymeow

I took my 3 month old baby BP for his first vet exam yesterday, mainly because he had a rectal prolapse that retracted back in by itself (I helped to push the last bit of remaining tissue back in). He also had mites and was a bit small.

I paid:
$84 for initial exam
$48 fecal exam
$40 ivomec injection
$15 panacur oral meds

For a total of $210 after taxes :O I do admit I felt gouged for that price but in the end, I just want my baby to be healthy. He was the closest vet that could see him at the time I was available because I had exams in the morning.

People take their cats and dogs for yearly exams and it doesn't make sense to me that reptile owners don't take their snakes which live twice as long as cats/dogs.

What is the average/most expensive BP vet bill you've ever paid?

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That does seem a bit steep. Ajja's first vet visit was under $100, I believe. That was for the exam, fecal, a dose of Flagyl, and her Frontline prescription. That's going to one of the best reptile vets in the country. Her 1yr checkup was even less.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sho220

Completely off base in my opinion...you're comparing apples to hammers...if your husbandry is on par, what would you expect to get out of a vet visit???

edit: This applies to healthy captive bred balls...not imports...

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I don't think it really IS off base. Not COMPLETELY, at least. You're correct in that reptiles need WAY less preventative medicine than cats or dogs, but that's because of the health issues that have been bred into them through domestication and breeding for specific breeds. Still, preventative care can't hurt, and catching problems before they're out of control could save a life, especially for a new or small scale keeper. On the other hand, if you're breeding or maintaining a large collection, you REALLY need to have a good grasp on BP health, since you could go broke taking them all in once a year. AND you'd probably never leave the vet's office


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