Egg Bound Female

[herekittykitty]

I have a female that is egg bound with 4 eggs. She laid one egg on her own on March 3, 2021, Wednesday, (Day 48 since prelay). After 24 hours of no more eggs, I soaked her and gently massaged. The next morning she had laid one more egg, but no more after that. I continued soaking and gently massaging, but come Monday had had no luck, so I took her to the vet. They scanned her and said there were 4 eggs still present and they would give her some antibiotics and fluids to try to help and would check in after 24 hours, but to continue the soaking and massaging. Today Tuesday morning still no luck. They called and said that they have 3 options: to continue to try what we are doing at home, put her under so they can aspirate and manipulate that eggs out, or refer us to an animal hospital that is 3 hours away. Any help other than putting her through all that stress would be helpful because I cannot find anything with anyone experience an egg bound female with more than 2 eggs.

[Bogertophis]

Ugh...egg-binding is the pits. In the past, I had a bull snake that I had to help (push & massage) the one egg that was larger than the others- it was the third egg out, as I recall, & I helped her expel that one, then she got the rest out by herself. Whew!

I've also had a vet give an injection of oxytocin to stimulate the snake's contractions to push the eggs out. That works, but you can't wait too long to do this- needs to be within a day (or 2 at the most?) of when the egg-laying started, as I recall. That worked. When a snake has large eggs, they can get tired, but if it's truly too large or something else is wrong* they may need other help.

*I once had a snake that had an ectopic pregnancy- she needed surgery which was successful- she was also spayed at that time. That wonderful vet saved her life- you never hear about this condition in snakes, but that's probably from a lack of diagnosis & death of the snake, so people don't realize that's what the cause was.

And sadly, I've lost a snake (a cal king) to egg-binding.

It's been a while since any of my experiences with this, so maybe there are other methods & ways of thinking now too. I've heard of the aspiration method, never had it done on any of my snakes- it's very risky for infection, since the needle is going thru the snake's body to get to the egg (or eggs) but with antibiotics & luck, it beats doing nothing, as doing nothing your snake won't make it.

Wish you & your snake all the best with this. Does your current vet have experience with this (aspiration method) in snakes? If so, I'd try that.