Nebulizing F10 - My Experience

[Skiploder]

About 7 years ago I hatched out a clutch of black tailed cribos. One of the eggs was noticeably smaller than the others. It hatched out almost a week earlier than the other eggs and the little male baby was extremely undersized. He also didn’t have a black tail – which is beside the point – but one to remember next time someone tries to sell you a unicolor cribo.

He had to be force-fed for almost 8 weeks. He ultimately survived but is undersized for a black-tail male.

He is easily stressed – a gentle snake that freaks out if his furnishings are moved, if his drawer is too bright or if he is handled too much.

If repeatedly stressed, he will develop an upper respiratory infection. In his 7 years he has had at least 10 RIs – all of which have been treated with antibiotics.

The vet thinks that he has a combination of a compromised immune system and potentially a defect in his respiratory system. I’ve kept him because he’s a gentle animal and because – if not stressed – has thrived.

This past fall, we were out of town for ten days. The gal who pet sits for us was changing his water and left his drawer open. He got out and hid under a smaller rack. Every time she tried to extract him, he nailed her. She called me and I told her to leave him alone – we were due home in four days and since the herp building is in the low 70s, he would be fine until I got home. I told her to put his water dish and trap box hide near him and to make sure the door to the building was closed.

When we got home, he had a full blown RI, complete with slugs of pus coming up out of his trachea and labored opened mouth breathing. To make matters worse, our vet was out of town.

I have done tracheal flushing on snakes before, so with the help of my son, we flushed “Louie” out. In the meantime, the vet texted me back and told me that while she could prescribe an injectable antibiotic, that she was hesitant to do so without a culture. Over the years, his RIs have become gradually resistant to some meds.

She told me that she and another colleague had success nebulizing F10 at a concentration of 0.3cc per liter of distilled water. Now I have heard F10 could be utilized this way, but the info had not come from a vet, so I treated the news with skepticism.

In California, nebulizers cannot be sold without a prescription. The vet called her office and had them fax over a prescription to a nearby medical supply store. The next day, I began nebulizing Louie.

In order to keep the stress to a minimum, I modified the nozzle of the nebulizer to fit in the barely opened trap box door and nebulized him for 40 minutes every evening. After two weeks I noticed that his symptoms were lessened. After four weeks they were gone.

I ended up nebulizing him for two months. Because he was essentially nebulized in his hide, the process was literally stress-free.

I had hesitated posting this info for a couple of reasons – foremost was that I wanted to make sure he was clear of the infection. The end of his F10 treatment coincided with the time of year in which mature male cribos go off of feed due to breeding reasons. I am happy to say that two weeks ago he began pounding jumbo mice with all the vigor of a healthy snake.

So does nebulizing F10 work for RIs? Well, in my humble opinion it does. I ended up doing it with the concurrence of our vet. I’ll be honest in saying that I probably would not have done it if she had not recommended it as an option.