Tirel, Ghost Boa

[CloudtheBoa]

Thanks everyone! Despite her awkward start, she's proving to be the more docile of the pair. I actually got bit by the anery motley and he's struck at me more times than I can count on both hands now, despite being so docile out of the bag. haha

She reminds me a lot of my retic, but she moves slower. I went up to her tub one night to see where she was, and all of a sudden this head comes creeping out of the vines ever so slowly. If I blinked, turned my head, or waved my hand, she'd come closer, until her nose touched the tub. She does this every time I come up to her tub. She let me take her out without any problems beyond grabbing the vine with her tail. She moves a bit jerkily, in that she'll suddenly whip her head to the side to stare at movement, or jumps at sudden touches, so she's going to take a bit of getting used to. It's hard to tell if she's moving defensively in a way that means a strike is coming or she's just nervous from meeting a new person. She's quite different from my other snakes.

I began handling her last Friday, and the handling session went well until I wanted to put her up. -.- Once I set her down, before I could get her off my hand, she shot up her tub and grabbed onto the lip with her head. I tried to pick her up off of it and she got ready to headbutt/snap at me, but pulled away halfway through the strike. After that, she let me put her up with little hassle.


I got to take her outside so here are some daylight photos. She's in her dark phase here.











She seems weirdly intrigued by my camera, whenever I have it out taking pictures of her (during the two actual handling sessions I've had with her), she keeps bumping at the lens and trying to climb on the camera even as I'm pulling it away from her. (You can see her belly in the corner because she was crawling on it.)





Here she is again investigating the lens, while I take a close up of her tail.




And here's from the following night. I got some fake plants in that day and I put one in her tub. She was all excited over the washing machine going earlier that day, so I took her out to try to expend some of her energy.


Unfortunately, I must not have had her out long enough because she once again shot up out of her tub, and grabbed onto her water dish, knocking it over while I tried to retrieve her. I ended up just leaving her there so I could take a photo and change her bedding.








And some from the handling session before becoming a problem child yet again.











Some that were a bit truer to color. She was in a light phase, so she was looking whiter/grayer than ever, with the brownness a little less pronounced, on her back.

[CloudtheBoa]

This feeding day she got her rat. I gave her a small rat this time since that's what the breeder had her on, but I think the bulge is a little large so I'm going to give her a weaned rat and see what sort of lump that leaves. If it isn't too small, I'll step her down to weaned rats, if they are too small I'll keep her on smalls but space her feedings out to every 3 weeks.








And the bulge after (it's cool seeing these pics side by side because she goes through such a nice color change).





It didn't look too impressive from that angle, so here's a side view. Considering how large she is for her age, and the fact she's a year old, I'd like to see a barely noticeable bulge. I like to feed smaller prey items rather than feeding larger and having to space out the feedings even further.





These photos are from the morning of. Whenever I open the window and turn on the fan, it makes her antsy for awhile and then she settles down at the front of her tub. Well front for me anyway.


Heard a thump in the night and found this. She was belly up but rolled over when I opened her tub.





What are you looking at?





And one from later on that morning, when she ended up dumping her water dish. She was not happy at all, and actually hissed at me when I went to pick her up. She didn't put up a fight at all and immediately stopped hissing when I lifted her up.

[CloudtheBoa]

Well today we had to take a vet visit for Tirel.

I woke up at 1 pm and Tirel was doing fine, she had her head hanging out of her vine. At about 2:30 pm I noticed movement in her vine: she was switching her tail around. I thought she was pooping so I came around to the side to look under her vines and see. I was greeted by a very swollen head, a loud hiss, a strike to the side of the tub, and then she violently jumped away deeper into her vines.

I lifted the vine out to look at her and I freaked out because her face was all puffy and she was still swinging her tail around.

Here's a video of the tail wagging (hopefully it works I've never uploaded a video on Tapatalk before.)



Here are some photos from before I took her to the vet.







And at the vet's waiting to be seen.



The vet said it's probably cellulitis and it's usually caused by a bacterial infection. He said we'd need to put her on antibiotics and and I asked him if it was possible to get some cultures done on it. We were unable to get any samples from the swollen area, so he got some from her throat but says that probably won't tell us what's going on with the swelling. He contacted the place they send the samples to see if there was any worthwhile samples he could get and we'll decide where to go from there.

For now, she got a shot of Fortaz so she at least has some sort of treatment overnight. Depending on what happens we'll either be staying with him for her treatment or going to the one in Asheville if we need a more experienced vet. I should be getting a call tomorrow to see what to do with her next.

She absolutely hated the visit, I thought for sure she'd bite or hiss or poop on us but the most she did was one very soft hiss and musk us. She had her pores WIDE open smearing it everywhere, it smelled heavily of fish in the office after that.

The weirdest thing is it went away as fast as it came on. Even before she got the shot he swelling went down. Her chin was so swollen it was hanging open slightly before I left but by the time I got to the vet office it had gone down enough to allow her mouth to close. By the time we took her out to give her the shot the swelling was almost completely gone.

Here she is when we got home.



Hopefully everything goes well and we'll easily have her treated with a round of antibiotics. I'll post more tomorrow.


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[cristacake]

Poor Tirel! Hope she feels better fast


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[Terminal]

Hope everything is ok with Tirel and maybe she just needed some attention.


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[Eavlynn]

The little gal certainly gave you a scare! I'm glad it appears to be passing so quickly, whatever it is. I hope she gets well and stays well!

[CloudtheBoa]

Thanks everyone! She appears to be doing very well, every trace of swelling is gone and her mood has improved (she's still her touchy self though).

I didn't get a call so I called the vet office and the testing place said the throat swab was good and to send that in, so the vet is sending in the sample we got yesterday. We should have the results by Friday, so I made an appointment to bring her in then so she can be looked at and get her next dose of Fortaz if needed.

I'm so glad she's looking better, I was worried there.


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[CloudtheBoa]

Well the test results came back with Pseudomonoas aeruginosa. The bacteria was found to be sensitive to both Baytril and Fortaz, but since we've already started with Fortaz we'll continue with that. She's getting 10 injections every 3 days, and the vet says if she's showing no worrisome signs we should be fine to just put her back to normal husbandry.


I've increased her hot spot, it's going to take a bit of tweaking with the thermostat to get it to where I want it, but I'm aiming for 93-94F rather than 90-91F.


I cannot find much information on this bacteria at all on Google, but it seems to mostly be associated with mouth rot and RIs, and a lot of snakes seem to die. From what I've read it's not contagious, it's an opportunistic bacteria, but she'll still be in quarantine of course. It seems they often refuse food, but she took 2 meals readily, so the infection either started after her last meal or it wasn't affecting her, or this bacteria isn't the one causing the infection.


That said, she was making some clicking sounds at the vet's today, but I'm not sure if that's from the stress of 2 vet visits, the way she was sitting (she was curled tightly in a ball from the injection), or what. I'm just going to keep an eye on her and see how she develops.


Today she pooped for the first time since getting her, and it was disgusting. It was smelly and large and rather runny. Not sure if that's from the Fortaz or not. She's also starting to show signs of dehydration from the meds or possibly wetness exposure, as she's dumped her water dish 2 or 3 times now and pooped today. Her scales are bending and curling up all over. I've washed her off and I'm hoping she doesn't keep dumping her water dish so it can stay dry in there.

[Terminal]

CTB, hoping all goes well and Tirel recovers quickly.


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[CloudtheBoa]

And I just realized I probably wasn't too clear: she's getting 10 total injections each spaced 3 days apart. Lol


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