Who is right hereDo you see this as swelling?

[JoshSloane]

That looks like when my babies have a bad rat bite. But it looks like it got infected. Maybe some antibiotics or f10 and clean him up.


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I completely agree with this. I would bet that at some point a feeder scratched or bit him on the face, and over time it became infected and inflamed. There is DEFINITELY a pathology present here. If I were you I would be livid with the breeder for trying to pass that off as occurring from smeared poop. Just ridiculous. IMO the breeder needs to cover the full cost of the vet visits. It is one thing for a breeder to admit they don't know what happened, rather than a bold faced lie.

[Solarsoldier001]

I completely agree with this. I would bet that at some point a feeder scratched or bit him on the face, and over time it became infected and inflamed. There is DEFINITELY a pathology present here. If I were you I would be livid with the breeder for trying to pass that off as occurring from smeared poop. Just ridiculous. IMO the breeder needs to cover the full cost of the vet visits. It is one thing for a breeder to admit they don't know what happened, rather than a bold faced lie.

I have a bel and albinos that get nipped every now and then. I watch and make sure that the wound doesn't get worst. Unfortunately it comes with feeding live animals.


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[JoshSloane]

This is definitely avoidable. Over the years I have had a couple bites and scratches from feeders on my boas. A little betadine dabbed on there would have likely helped immensely.

[Artic_exotics]

At this point Ive spent a fair amount of time staring at it, and I havent found a wound perse. I really think there is discharge coming from the nose, and he is rubbing it against the tub because it is bothering him. If you look at the pictures taken from the top it looks like the redness starts at the nostrils and goes down and to the sides, it follows the path that he is rubbing his face against the cage.



Take a look at the bottom left picture, see how the pigment looks like its being rubbed off? It looks just like how the pigment got rubbed away with this retic

Thing is I want a culture done (taken from a swab of the nose area), but my vet says he cant do it that way, wont take me seriously, and I dont want whatever this is to turn into something big before he gets competent care either. Unfortunately hes the only vet within 150 miles of here that specializes in "exotics" (which im starting to believe means horses) so im contemplating a couple options right now.

1) take him to a local regular vet who may at least be willing to work with me on this. I mean how specialized do you need to be to do a culture right?
2) fly to anchorage/fairbanks with him (very costly) and hope they dont tell me the same thing.

3) Start at least something for treatment myself.

a.) Im thinking i at least want to clean it with cotton swabs and some form of antiseptic: I have betadine, chlorahexadine, nolvasan, (plus batracin, and triple antibiotic ointment like you would use on people). but I dont have f10 I can call around the pharmacies in hopes of finding it but wouldnt betadine do?


b.) I could start him on a round of baytril 2.5% myself (which i do have access to, and have done before), as im quite sure thats what he would be prescribed anyway, however, im not fond of treatments without diagnosis and would really prefer a culture taken. I dont want to shotgun start him on something if he doesnt need it. I also have the ability to nebulize meds.

I am incredibly frustrated. I shouldn't have to contemplate doing #3 at all.

[Asherah]

Given your limited options on vets, I would for sure get a vet who it at least willing to listen to you and do a culture. Not all vets specialize in reptiles, but a good vet will at least do their homework and try to find out what is wrong.

[frostysBP]

I was thinking the same thing and the way a retic rubs.... Have you tried changing up the enclosure at all? If he is constantly rubing it won't get better.

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[Penultimate]

There is definitely something wrong there. I would contact the breeder immediately, selling an animal to you with that kind of health issue is not ok. I think I would talk to a non exotic vet if necessary, but I wouldn't do that normally. Why did your vet say he couldn't do things with a culture? Did you ask?

What's your husbandry like? I doubt it's a husbandry issue if he did it at the breeder's as well (and he may have) but it never hurts to check.

[bcr229]

Assuming you know of a better exotics vet in Anchorage who would be willing to do the culture, etc. would it be easier to find someone there you could ship him to, who could take him to the vet and then ship him back?

[Artic_exotics]

Figure id offer an update.

Took him to a regular vet here, who also told me that she couldnt do the culture either, but she at least told me why. She said in order to do the culture they would need some mucus, which there doesnt appear to be any or if there was it wouldnt be enough to run the test. But she did agree something was wrong, but with a lack of other symptoms pointing to infection she doesnt want to start the antibiotics quite yet. I found that reasonable.

So this is what the treatment that he did get was:

1) Used my friends fancy electricians infrared temp gun to make sure my herpstat wasnt off calibration. It wasnt.

2) Move him into a larger tub he cant see out of, theory is that since he can see outside, he wants to be outside. Didnt really think of that, his tub was plastic, but very clear. Moved him into a 28qt tub on another rack, which i feel is pretty freakin large for a 200 gram animal, but he seems better though because has finally stopped rubbing it on everything.

Anyway he got a 2 hour bath in a 6 qt tub partially ontop of a heatmat to keep the water warm. (this was to see if any usable amount of mucus would come out). No such luck.

Since then hes got a daily swab with betadine and believe it or not, a light amount of polysporin.

Hard call on if its healing real well because the betadine seems to be staining it a bit, but the vet assures me the staining will come off next shed. makes sense.

Will post some pics up of the progress tomorrow

[frostysBP]

Thanks for the update....have you had the chance to talk to any retic people that have delt with pushing before?

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