Ri#2

[Salamander Rising]

Baytril is an older medication many bacteria are now resistant to it. I understand the problem but I would get on the phone and speak to a vet whom is willing to work WITH you they will have the experience need to properly deal with the problem. I would really recommend a culture be done before dosing with drugs as drugs often purger the culture. Any decent vet will be able to send the sample out to a lab.

The next questions is what is up that is causing the ri in the first place. Typically it is attached to temps (ambient air often) and poor ventilation. So the next question is what are the ambient air temps in your rack and how many holes do you have in the tubs?

there was a poster a while back whom had no holes and over a period of time all the snakes got RI he had, although he insisted they had enough ventilation the whole time...

Turns out that I've been accidentally torturing my vet.

He's "not a snake person" by any stretch of the imagination and probably only saw her out of respect for the long, happy relationship we've had with him.

Now I feel awful about that, too.

The tubs have the right amount of holes [2 days of trial and error] to keep the hum about 50-55%.
I'd check them every so often, add another couple of holes and they're good.
Air flow's good since I created a cross-current by having holes at the top on one side and middle on the other.

For an unknown span of time, [possibly 2 days or so] temps were low due to hubby being a neat-freak who couldn't bear the sight of the unsightly tangle of heat cable.

So, he gathered it all up and neatly zip-tied it into a lovely little coil....which caused it to shut down to avoid a fire, thus leaving 3 tubs with no heat other than the 80-something room temp provided by the oil filled heater.

There's no point in belaboring that because he gets mad at me, the snakes, the dogs, whatever, if he screws up and causes them unintentional harm.

Is there any way I can take a culture to him without subjecting the snakes to the bitter cold temps, again?

Both times I took Norma for her shots, she was dramatically worse that night, in spite of being in a heavily insulated tote with more than adequate heat.

[I don't know if the air pressure, ripping wild wind or what is affecting them when taken from the house....maybe it's just the stress]

Bottom line is, the vets I thought were in a somewhat drivable range have all left for parts unknown.

All I have is my vet who is a very good vet but not snake happy.

To make life even more interesting, all the cumulative vet visits over the last two weeks have just about bled us dry.

I cannot borrow any money from anyone because the only people who have it would be my parents and there's no way in hell they'd give a dime for a sick snake.

I've hit the bottom.

I can only do the best I can with what I have.

Until/unless the economy is un-wrecked, the home business we run is bottomed out.

No orders, no 'extra' money.

And, as usual, when it rains, it pours like mad.

There's no point in jumping on me because I couldn't possibly feel any worse than I do.

I've never "failed" my animals before....ever.