I feel so bad for my rescue girl...

[xraven07x]

I'm new here....*waves*...But not to herping. Been keeping geckos, lizards and various snakes and such for about 15 years now, off and on. Mostly on a foster basis recently.

I just adopted the female BP late Sunday evening. She's 9 years old and is missing part of her tail, up to her vent from prior horrible neglect. I had her all ready to go. I noticed just a few hours after getting her home, she began yawning alot and keeping her head propped. That made me worry. I asked the folks who kept her if this was normal for her...They said yeah, it's normal, don't worry. If she starts wheezing and getting clogged up, then worry. Well...I continued to worry like the mother hen I am. This morning I took her to my vet out of an abundance of caution and lo and behold she did have a little bit of a cold. She was gummy in the back of her throat and a little irritated. Not enough to warrant anti-biotics, but enough to keep her in triage to see if the gummed-up-works situation improves.

I feel so bad. I've been keeping difficult critters for YEARS and 48 hours into getting a rescue BP, she's gotten herself a cold. I can't help but feel like its my fault, but I have FOUR thermometers, a hygrometer, a thermostat, warm hide/cool hide, ample fresh water changed twice daily...I'm just hoping it was stress related or she was already coming down with something and the stress of everything made it worse. I hope I can get her feeling better so she won't need antibiotics.

Uhg. I've raised her temperatures and will be giving her a warm steamy bath and coupage her a bit later to see if I can help. But I also don't want to stress her out at the same time, even more than she already has been...But I guess necessary evils and all

I've never had a snake with RI and luckily hers isn't full blown because I caught it so soon, but if anyone else has any words of wisdom, feel free to pass them on. My vet said to give her a few days to see if upping her temps, warm steam baths and letting her relax a little will help.

[wolfy-hound]

48 hours probably means she had the infection and the stress of being moved just brought it to visable symptoms.

[Tfpets]

If they thought that propping the head upright and yawning was "normal" then they have been neglecting and ignoring the classic signs of respritory infection! The question is how long has she been like this! Good job getting her to the vet, but honestly and in my opinion she DOES need antibiotics! It is possible to have the symptoms subside with proper husbandry, but that won't need necessarily get rid of the infection.

[xraven07x]

I thought it was a little weird too...They've had the snake for 4 years after they rescued her from the folks who cause the tail incident...but even if it's her "thing"...To me if quacks like a duck and looks like a duck...it's probably a duck...and it needs to be seen by a vet.

She has to be treated as a special case because of all the anti-biotics and such she was on when her tail went necrotic and fell off. The toxicity of that cocktail was pretty pronounced. This is why my vet is cautious to see if we can get her feeling better without going down that route initially. She'll go back to the vet in a few days and we'll decide then what to do.

[Tfpets]

Yep, definitely some special circumstances! Poor snake! I suppose her past treatments could have lead to some strange behaviors. Hope that's the case!