Snakes keep getting sick..

[Shelby]

Ok well this started 8 months ago when I bought my female dumerils boa. When I got her home I realised she had an RI.. a bad one. Nice of the people to sell me a sick snake.

Now 8 months and over $1000 later she is still sick. We first tried the antibiotic Amakacin.. sorta maybe worked, then Fortaz. That worked. Hey, look she's better! Two weeks later, she's bubbling and wheezing again. Ok, we try Amakacin AND Fortaz.. she's mostly better. Few days later, she's worse. Get another round (another $100 to the vet) she's mostly better.. get another round ($100) she's mostly better.. but not quite.. and here we are.

About a month ago my male surinam boa started bubbling. Go to vet.. $180 get Fortaz.. at this point he seems better again.

A week after the surinam goes, my female roughscaled sand boa has an RI. She's still on Fortaz now, and seems to be getting better..?

Now.. I have a specked king I think may have a RI, and tonight I see that my female blood has one too.

What is going on?!! I can not afford this much longer.. My ambient temps in both herp rooms (there is a quarantine room which is filling up) is 80-84 degrees all the time. Everyone is either in a rack or boaphile cage and is on flexwatt with thermostats. Cages cleaned every week.. I use disposable water dishes replaced every week for everyone but the big snakes which have theirs disinfected weekly. I wash my hands very thoroughly before and after handling any snake, and I always deal with the established collection before quarantines.

I am at a loss and am very frustrated at this point. Oh, and I think my BP is sick too.

Oh and one more.. my hog island is a mystery. I spent about $1000 on her at the vet too thinking she's got RI.. nothing worked. We tried three antibiotics, and did a lung wash.. nothing worked. Well, she had rubbed her nose so badly that she has no nostrils anymore, so she breathes with her mouth open.. so we don't even know if she's sick (bubbly red mouth) or just has issues because she has no nose.

[Kara]

Run your QT room at a minimum 84-85 all the time..make sure your sick snakes are in as big a cage as you can possibly manage, whether rubbermaid tubs or otherwise. Give them room to stretch out & prop up...give them hides to prop up on, etc.

What is your disinfectant, and what are you using for contact time?

K~

[Shelby]

Right now the temp is 85.6 degrees.

They have large cages and multiple hides.

I use chlorhexadine mixed twice as strong as the instructions say and I leave it on for several minutes.

[kavmon]

get with becky or adam, you might have to have cultures done to find out exactly what they have? i've heard of snakes being immune to certain meds and certain meds not working on all types of ri...



vaughn

[Shelby]

Yeah, I did a culture on the female dumeril.. as well as the hog island. Super expensive and both came back as 'no growth' ..further frustration. You know, I do my best to be a good snake mom, and I have nothing but trouble. Everyone laughs at me for using gloves between each snake, and washing my hands 10000 times.. they don't get it.

[recycling goddess]

shelby we aren't laughing... we are crying with you! this sucks.

i have no suggestions except to assure you... you ARE a great snake mom.

hugs and more hugs

[cassandra]

Ditto...sending you big hugs. I hope they get better (and stay better!) soon. /hug

[JLC]

I wonder if there is some general irritant in the environment that they are all exposed to, to some degree or another? Some cleaning material...incense...candles...room fresheners...cigarette smoke...or outside pollutant that we can't avoid letting into our homes....?


It might be a bit pricey to get one that really works, but maybe you could get an air purifier for the room(s) they are in? See if that helps to clear things up? And of course, get rid of any possible source that you have control over, such as candles or whatnot.

[Adam_Wysocki]

I wonder if there is some general irritant in the environment that they are all exposed to, to some degree or another? Some cleaning material...incense...candles...room fresheners...cigarette smoke...or outside pollutant that we can't avoid letting into our homes....?

If it started 8 months ago with a sick snake brought into the collection/quarantine, I find it "most likely" that the problems are cross contamination related more so than environmental.

Over the last 25 years, I've never seen a single case or RI caused by "Some cleaning material...incense...candles...room fresheners...cigarette smoke ... etc" ... not saying that it isn't "possible"' in this case, just that logically it's more likely to be related to the original sick animal.

I'd try another vet for the cultures, you should at least be able to identify the bug and try and trace it back to the original animal. Unfortunately, I don't know a thing about anti-biotic protocols in anything but ball pythons. If your ball pops positive on a culture, I can certainly do my best to help.

-adam

[JLC]

Just trying to come up with different possibilities. Granted, if a particular snake came into the collection already sick, it is more likely that some bug is spreading...but if cultures are coming back negative and standard treatments aren't working...it never hurts to look at alternative possibilities. I don't imagine candles and such would bother reptiles, as a general rule...but there are some strong stuff out there that people use to "freshen" their homes and I just wondered if such a list might jog a memory of something new coming into the home right about the same time the first sick snake did.