snake hates me

At the moment I have a very unhappy and stressed snake. He was very neglected when we rescued him. Dehydrated and malnurished. I have to give him injections every three days, oral wormer [boy is that fun, NOT] and I have to wipe down a wound every day with a bentadine solution. If I was a snake, I would hate me too.

Now when I try to pick him up, he balls right up and hisses. I can't even unwind him to get to his wound to wipe down. However; his wound is looking great. 2 vials of fluid were drawn out of his wound infection he started to develop.

I know others on here treat there snakes, will he get over this OK? Is there something I can do to ease his stress? This is like a catch 22. I have to care for his physical health, but this is causing stress. Any suggestions?

Teej

All I can say Teej is you have to do what you have to do for his health so just do it as quickly and efficiently as you can. Then I'd make sure the snake is in a very quiet, low light room and maybe even add in crumpled newspaper to make him feel secure. Then just leave him be as much as possible between treatments. At least then he can de-stress a bit between.

I wouldn't worry about it to much his health is what you got to take care of.If he hisses or strike's you still gotta give the Med's.It's just scared of the injection's , you've got plenty of time to build that trust with your bp.

Some of them never calm down; my male LaVey would be a great example of that :) I still love him like the awesome little gem he is, but he is def. a pi$ser in the attitude department. Sounds like yours has had so much stress; I would probably hold off on any unnecessary handling and just take him at face value for now; you could always get a second one that has a better demeanor to "handle" and let him go at his own pace.

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

I would probably hold off on any unnecessary handling and just take him at face value for now; you could always get a second one that has a better demeanor to "handle" and let him go at his own pace.

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That is not the issue. My son has plenty of snakes that I can handle. But this one I have to treat to heal so I have to handle him daily and give him frequent injections for a month. Do you have any suggest for easing his stress while I have to treat and handle him during this unpleasant experience for him?

Teej

one thing u can do to ease his stress while you are cleaning the wound for example is to put a sock over his head, preferably clean though lol. This helps to calm them down and also gives ou security when working with your bp. With the oral meds you just have to get on and do it. The best thing to do is to just do it quickly and efficiently. With his viv etc, keep it simple, paper preferably white paper so u can keep an eye on whats coming out of the snake, be it back end or the wound. Just give a coupel of hides, a small water bowl which is big enough to drink from and not too soak, to help the wound healing we need to keep it fairly dry and clean. Without pics its hard to say anymore. You will find that your BP will shed more regularly due to the wound, and usually afer a coupel of sheds you will hardly know the wound was there.

Best of luck and major Kudos to you in helping out!!!



Peter

Just what the others said - I was in the position where I had to inject a snake daily then give oral meds - not fun - I found the oral meds the hardest. I remember vet telling me snakes take a long time (because of their metabolism) to heal, longer than other things. But this wound is healing well and you must concentrate on getting that all better and once it is after a while of you not sticking needles in the minute snake comes out in the future it should begin to trust you again. Well done for what you are obviously doing well :)

Noticed he is filling up with fluid again under his skin by this wound.


The vet says I have to drain it with a needle and to expect 3 vials full.

Great!!! I hate needles. Wait til I tell my wife that I need her help.:rolleyes:

Teej

*comfort*

I just got done with 10 days of Baytril shots for my boa...I feel your pain. Thank god I didn't have to do oral meds for her....but I am giving these HUGE pills (hey, it's Baytril! go go animal anti-botic!) to my cat, basically have to make him gag them down. Not fun. =P

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Originally Posted by cassandra

*comfort*

I just got done with 10 days of Baytril shots for my boa...I feel your pain. Thank god I didn't have to do oral meds for her....but I am giving these HUGE pills (hey, it's Baytril! go go animal anti-botic!) to my cat, basically have to make him gag them down. Not fun. =P

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How big are they? I have a cat that is always on one pill or another, and I generally cut the bigger ones in half and smoosh each half into a moist cat treat. Every once in a while the pill will fall out of the treat and I have to do it again, but usually he just gulps them right down.

I tried pulverizing one pill and mixing into a bit of stinky fish wet cat food...he knew right away. The pills themselves are, oh...3/8" in diameter (eyeballing my ruler at work, looks about right). Can't be much smaller than his trachea. Only 6 more days and then we're done with the pills (bladder infection).

Treating a sick reptile (or any animal) is never fun.

I think the best suggestions to cover the snake's head are the best. if there is a way to lower the height of the cage where you can treat him without actually removing him from the cage that helps sometimes..Sometimes you just have to take them out. I usually prepare ALL of the treatments for the animal, and have them ready before I even get the animal out, and I sometimes use an old dishtowel, (or sock as someone else suggested) to cover the animals eyes and face while I remove it and treat it..

What were the wounds from? How severe are they? Are you administering baytril? or saline? If its baytril, I believe that is best administered every other day. It is a pretty powerful medicine so are most wormers, and can have dehydrating effects..

I've had situations similar, and its not pleasant. Best of luck!

When I needed to inject antibiotics, my vet (he's an exotics specialist) said baytril isn't often effective for snakes. We started off on the baytril to make a headway while the blood sample was off for analysis to see which antibiotic would be best for that type of infection - we then switched to the one that would be effective.

I always consider baytril to be the last chance med, it is often prescribed over here in the UK as it is known as a broad band anti-biotic that covers most problems. The thing is we are soo behind on medication here for reps, that a lot of vets still do not show how to inject baytril correctly and have been known to use the same point of entry on multiple occassions and wondering why the skin and tissue there burns away!

Unless it is a deaths door, correct spectographic testing then prescibing the correct anti-biotic in the long term I feel is better for the animal. For the sake of 2-3 days for results to return I feel a lot of the time is worth the wait rather than useing Baytril ad hoc!

Anyways thats my opinion, and that of the 2 top vets in the UK, and the best rescuer probably on the planet!!! I have seen first hand the injuries caused by injecting baytril and unless there is no other course I will NEVER inject Baytril. Orally is different though!

God dont I sound like I am on mu soap box!?!?!?

Sorry folks!!!



Peter

Calm down everyone. My vet is not using "baytril" to treat this. He did mention a medication that used to be used, but he said it was hard on the liver if I recall. I DO NOT remember if it was baytril he was refering too. He was going over so much information at the time and I was still in "I have to give injections" shock that I do not remember a lot of the technical stuff he went over.


Anyway, he wanted to see if this other medication would work first.
My vet has me injecting something called " Amikacin ". In my snakes neglected state, he weighs only 1 lb. So as per his body weight, I am to inject .05cc the first dose then .02cc every 3 days for 1 month. [the vet gave an initial dose injection in the office of .05cc] So my vet wanted to wait 1 week to see if there was any improvement with this Amikacin before determining if we needed to change medications.

Well over night after the vets first injection the pink coloration that had developed in some of my snakes belly scales subsided considerably. So I am praying that this medication is going to work just fine. I will keep you all updated as my snake heals.

Has anyone else heard of the amikacin medication? "Goldenburm, is amikacin availible there in the UK? You may want to look into it. Thanks all.
Teej

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Originally Posted by Teej

Calm down everyone. My vet is not using "baytril" to treat this.

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Peter was probably directing that at me, so relax. =)

I am relaxed. It is hard to read emotions from reading typed scripted, but I am relaxed as can be except for the fact that I pulled my lower back last evening and I cannot move without pain shooting through me and I have to give my very first injection today. I have never injected anything before, but the vet gave me good instructions.


I will have my wife help and I will have everything set up and ready before I get Azlin [snakes name] out of his home. I am going to try the sock over his head suggestion and see how that goes. Hopefully the sock will work wonders because the way my back feels right now, I won't be able to wrestle a wiggly BP.

I will update as to how I did. I plan to inject his antibiotics first and then drain the fluid from under his skin and then attempt to clean his wound. fun, fun, fun

Thanks for everyones support and suggestions.
Teej

Best of luck with that - I know exactly what you mean by the initial shock of having to give injections - my first thought was "there's no way I can do that!!" I never thought of the sock idea, it sounds a good one, we used a heavy-weight towel and just exposed the area needing to be injected.


Hope all goes well!

~Sue

Alrighty then. The "sock over the head" suggestion ROCKS.


He did not want to be picked up at all and got into a very tight ball. My wife and I gently uncoiled him. I had everything already set up with the antibiotic in the needle ready to go. We used a white cotton athletic "ankle" sock. We had to gently push his neck and head area into the sock opening, but the ankle sock had a large enough opening that we did not have to struggle with him.

Then we stretched him out on a soft towel with my wife holding his neck behind his head and his body down while I pressed his tail down with my other hand.

He did not squirm around at all. In fact after the injection I was still able to withdraw 4 vials of fluid from under his skin without him flintching a bit. I believe that the sock over his head played the biggest part. I still have 3 weeks of injections to go. I'll keep you all posted.

Teej

Good luck! But it sounds like it went well this first time. Usu. an animal will calm down quite a bit if they can't see....they're afraid to move for fear the bogeyman will get them & they can't see it coming.


As to your question about the amikacin. We used it for Snoopy's infection when we found that the baytril wasn't working. Less corrosive to tissue, but then the culture came back and we found that the antibiotic needed to be MORE powerful to help and we ended up switching to something else.

Sounds like you're off to a good strong start though. Keep him warm, dark and in paper balls in his home in between treatments, and use the sock. That will all help.

:gj: RuLyn

Well for an update, our snake is doing great!!


As for the sock it is still a great idea that works, however now I don't even bother trying to get his head in it, all I do is lay it over his head and he just lays there while I give him his shot.

He is eating great and his body is filling out. It will be a month or two I think before his body is rounded out again. I have several more injections to give him. His wound looks great. The skin is white with just a scab line down the middle. He is in the process of shedding but again the wound area looks great!! There is no more fluid developing under his skin and he is much more active in his cage now that he is feeling better.

Thanks to everyone for their support and advice.
Teej

Glad to hear things are looking up. Keep us posted on his progress :)

Awesome news, Teej! Keep up the excellent work!