BP Drooling??

We haven't had our BP for very long now and we are still very new to him.. My question is, today we had him out for a little while and while he was hanging around, he started drooling pretty bad. I've never seen him do this before and I don't know what to think of it. I'm afraid it might be something bad, but once again I'm new to the BP world and I just want to make sure he isn't sick or something. The only thing I was able to find while searching on the forums was someone saying the symptoms of RI were drooling, but it didn't really help me much since I'm not sure what RI stands for.

Any help with this would be wonderful! I'm worried about him.

RI = Respiratory Infection

I thought you’d want to know ASAP, but I’m a noob myself, so you will have to wait for a more knowledgeable member to inform you further.

It might help if you also mention the temperature of the enclosure as well as the humidity levels, if possible.

yup, RI
go to the vet asap for some antibiotics.

Sounds like he may have Respiratory Infection. Take him to a vet ASAP. Good luck with everything:(

The temps are on a cheap pair of thermostats so they don't stay exactly where I set them..within a few degrees, but the warm side is at 90 and the cool side is at 80. Humidity is at 61% with the ambient temp of 74.2 degrees.

Thanks for solving the RI problem..

Could this have happened if he is excited or scared?? There was a little toddler around when we had him out and she was acting like a normal toddler...loud and hyper..gotta love kids.. :)

He's also currently shedding..

An RI is a respitory infection. I believe in ball pythons it's usually an upper respitory infection. The excess drool is usually a sign of an RI. Ball pythons can't get over an RI on their own, so if you think that your ball has one, you probably need to take it to the vet, so they can get it on something to fix it. Noone on the forum can tell if your snake is sick, so if you think there is something wrong, a vet trip is the best thing you can do for it.


**wow...I was talking while I was typing and apperently you all type alot faster than me! :P **

If fluid is coming from his mouth, he's already got a bad RI. He will DIE if you don't get him antibiotics. Make sure you get him to a GOOD herp vet ASAP.

Thanks so much everyone for the quick responses. The girlfriend has most of the day off tomorrow anyways so she is going to talk with the vet first thing in the morning.

Once again, everyone's help was much appreciated!!!

It could also be mouth rot. Either way, a vet trip is definitely in order.

Robin

definatly take a trip to the vet!

If he had a drink right before you picked him up, it could have dribbled out. Did it look like mucus or anything. Either way just to be sure get him into the vet and have him checked out:gj:

yea my Burm had RI but take him to the vet adn they will give u antibiotics to help it.

alright...found out a few things. It is an RI and the vet thought it was pneumonia. We have antibiotics for the little guy now. I believe the antibiotic is Baytrel? or something that sounds like that.

We also found out that he....is a SHE!! So we will be giving antibiotics for the next 7 days and a return visit to the vet for another checkup.

Thanks again everyone for the help!

How are the antibiotics being given?

Probably orally, if I'm not mistaken, its most commonly given orally or with nebulizers. wow, I would not know what to do trying to get a snake to take some nasty tasting Baytril. :ick:

[edit] Ha, you probably already knew that. :rolleyes:

Well, FWIW, I've heard that oral antibiotics don't help much for ball pythons...injection is the only way to go...I'd ask your vet what the deal is the next time you go...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

Well, FWIW, I've heard that oral antibiotics don't help much for ball pythons...injection is the only way to go...I'd ask your vet what the deal is the next time you go...

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http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...2&postcount=85 ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

How are the antibiotics being given?

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there needles you need ot inject them into the sankes body. you usally put them in bewteen the scales and gotta be careful so you dont puncture anything in there besides letting the medicine in the body. then your all good.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by plummer

there needles you need ot inject them into the sankes body. you usally put them in bewteen the scales and gotta be careful so you dont puncture anything in there besides letting the medicine in the body. then your all good.

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Yeah, I'm aware of that - I was asking the original poster how they were being administered.

When she mentioned she would be doing it herself, I suspected the vet prescribed oral antibiotics, which made me suspect that the vet she took that snake to wasn't experienced with ball pythons.

oh ok... sorry, thought u meant how do you do it lol

no problem ;)

The antibiotics are given with injections. We have 7 syringes to use for the next week..once per day.


oh...and I'm not a she...the snake is..

My mistake...good luck, and keep us updated.

its cool...i'll keep you guys and gals updated.. We should know by next week if everything is gone!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slipknot2157

its cool...i'll keep you guys and gals updated.. We should know by next week if everything is gone!

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after the medicine is gone.. wait another week so the medicine can work. then see the results

If everything is good at the vet. Do you remember if he was drinking any water before you picked him up. My first ball python i was told to not bother him for a few days after eating. I never thought about water. Well i picked him up right after he just had a big drink. When i had him out he started the same type of thing i did take to the vet just in case nothing was wrong with mine.

When we were at the vet he looked in the back of her mouth and saw that there was a build up of saliva just sitting in the back of her mouth. He said that it was a good sign of pneumonia. I'm really not sure if she had taken a drink before getting her out because we had just gotten home and immediately got her out.

Have you done the injection yet? Did they demonstrate how to do it for you?

Its a fairly trickly little procedure and the snake won't sit still for it. I had to do this for mine but I was lucky enough to have help from some experienced keepers. Definately get some help holding her down!

(btw, my BP never looked like he was drooling but he was always wiping his mouth on the furniture in his cage)

yeah the vet demonstrated how to give the injections. He also charged us 24 bucks to show us..nice guy.. He's the only person in town that would even look at exotic animals. We've given her 3 ourselves so far. It was pretty tricky the first few times.

yeah i had to give my bp a shot of ab. it was kide of a cool expirience. i enjoyed it. though i was still sad that my bp had a URI!

I could barely stand to see mine writhe in pain.

Mine had an RI that was detected early by the soft popping noise made as he breathed (and was confirmed by the presence of mouth mucus and eventual open-mouthed breathing). I did some quick research and found a site that i've always considered somewhat reputable say that the first thing that one can or should do is give the snake an artificial fever by keeping him in a high-temp environment for ~24 hours.

(If you think about it, it makes sense. When warm-blooded creatures are under microbial assault, our internal temperature is raised to help our immune system fight the battle. Snakes can't do this for themselves, but they do have an immune system that benefits from additional heat just like ours, so giving them that boost can really help**).

Since i couldn't find an exotics vet right away, i went ahead and put my little dude in a 15qt sterilite on an ultratherm heat pad (no t-stat. - please read about Ultratherm pads before trying this), with a paper towel down, a small bowl of water for humidity, a few ventilation holes in the tub, and most of the tub (~75%) on top of the mat. I checked him every couple of hours or so.

I took him to the vet the next day, but his RI had already started clearing up. By the time we got home, the popping had completely stopped so i put his Rx in the freezer in case we have a future episode that is less easily dealt with.**

**I am not a vet and can not officially recommend the artificial fever remedy in place of vet care. Please research this option *thoroughly* before attempting to treat the snake yourself to decide if it's right for you. The site i read, i believe, suggested a vet trip no-matter-what if the artificial fever remedy did not facilitate substantial improvement shortly after the 24 hour treatment period.

Higher temps are always a must when treating an RI(94). The medicine will still be working days after the last shot. Did the vet do a culture to see what kind of bacteria is causing the infection. Not all antibiotics kill all bacteria. The culture is the only way to know for sure that you are giving the snake the correct medicine. My vet started one of my snakes on an antibiotic until the culture came back only to change medicine once the culture revealed that specific bacteria was imune to the first antibiotic. In my experience the cluture is a must and should be done before any medications have been given. Best of luck.

Yes, when my snake got RI the vet originally gave me oral Baytril and everybody here urged me to go back and get injections, which I did. The vet was not impressed and gave me a printout of a related thread from a veterinary forum.

One if the really interesting things in there was this one vet that felt that the associated husbandry improvements probably had a large part to do with it. She wasn't saykng "don't use anti-biotics". Her point was that this factor isn't really taken into account much when considering how effective oral is vs. injections. So, my takeaway is that it was a bit of three-way gray area between oral vs. injections vs. fixing the husbandry.

(likewise, I'm in no way suggesting somebody should skip a vet visit)