Gatorade for snakes?

[Karma]

So I finally made it to this shop today. Every time I stop by during business hours they are never open. I heard from a friend on here how bad it was and wanted to take a looksy. These poor snakes were in terrible conditions. More than one burm to tiny tanks, bugs all over the snakes, dead scorpions sitting out of cages. It smelt so bad in the store I got sick. I talked to the owner and he gave me a card so I check out his site. I was curious as to why the snakes care was so bad and maybe he just doesn't know what the heck is going on. On the site it says he has a Doctorate in Herpetology but why would he put these care instructions on his site?

New snake care

We are Thrilled you chose us for you newest purchase ! Please allow us to give you a few "pointers" to m,ake the transition into a new home sucsessful .

Shipping is a tramatic event, temperatures in shipping can go from extreme to extreme , from almost freezing to baking hot , your new purchase may have seen some stressful situations on its short overnight journey to you.

We recomend providing a dark and apropriatly warm enviorment, no handling or undue stress for at least 48 hours. provide clean drinking water as dehydration is a severe problem , products like "pedia-lyte" and gatoraide will be benificial if added to the drinking water. apropriate sized food should be offered within the first 4 days. This should handle most of the stresses of shipping and give your new pet a great new start in its new home.

I was just curious if anyone has heard of this before. Wouldn't this be a bad thing? Obviously everything else he has offered to do is wrong. Where did he get his degree? From Walmart?!

Not sure if I can or should put the name/link up but here is it. Admin please edit if you feel it's inappropriate.
www.carolinareptileexchange.com

[JLC]

Seems more appropriate for the Inquiry Forum....but the whole gatoraid issue doesn't belong there, so I'll just leave it here.


I've heard of giving pedialyte or even gatoraid (although that is not as good due to the sugar content) to snakes that are severely dehydrated...even to the point of letting them soak in it. But it seems an extreme step to take just because a snake was shipped overnight. A healthy, hydrated snake does not suddenly become desperately dehydrated overnight.

[qiksilver]

sick or severely dehydrated animals may need help maintainingng osmolarity ( ratio dissolved stuff to fluid) in their bodily fluids, so you give them an isotonic(same ratio as should be found in bodily fluids) solution so that they can easily re-balance themselves in a way.

Amphibian people use frog ringers solution on sick frogs etc. same idea

I would imagine gatorade has too much sugar and wouldn't be good. But if the animal is not dehydrated there should be no need for any of this

*I hope this made sense, i'm kinda shot...

[The_Godfather]

I've used gatorade for dehydration and sheds in the past. Works well.

[Karma]

Interesting.. Thanks for the info.

[frankykeno]

Firstly go to the BOI and search for "Carolina Reptile Exchange", there's a lot of rather enlightening reading to do there in various threads.

Next, let's break this down....

So I finally made it to this shop today. Every time I stop by during business hours they are never open. I heard from a friend on here how bad it was and wanted to take a looksy. These poor snakes were in terrible conditions. More than one burm to tiny tanks, bugs all over the snakes, dead scorpions sitting out of cages. It smelt so bad in the store I got sick.

There is NO excuse for conditions such as these...none...I don't care what crap he's spewing, it's unacceptable!

On the site it says he has a Doctorate in Herpetology

Who is this elusive "he" and where did he receive his "doctorate" from? I can say I have a doctorate in belly button lint if I wanted to....at least I don't keep snakes in a nasty, foul manner. Who is this "founder" (I love the wording on that site LOL).

New snake care

We are Thrilled you chose us for you newest purchase ! Please allow us to give you a few "pointers" to m,ake the transition into a new home sucsessful .

Shipping is a tramatic event, temperatures in shipping can go from extreme to extreme , from almost freezing to baking hot , your new purchase may have seen some stressful situations on its short overnight journey to you.

We recomend providing a dark and apropriatly warm enviorment, no handling or undue stress for at least 48 hours. provide clean drinking water as dehydration is a severe problem , products like "pedia-lyte" and gatoraide will be benificial if added to the drinking water. apropriate sized food should be offered within the first 4 days. This should handle most of the stresses of shipping and give your new pet a great new start in its new home.

As to this lovely piece of crapola. Where to start....

Shipping should not be "traumatic", nor should a responsible, experienced shipper of live reptiles doing so legally through an approved carrier allow your snake to be exposed to freezing or boiling temps. Neither should a snake be "severely" dehydrated coming in through overnight shipping (unless it was kept like crap before Mr. Idiot stuffed it into a dirty gym sock and mailed it to you....grrrr).

The boa we just received went into FedEx hands at about 5 p.m. in Texas and was in my hands by 10:45 a.m. the next morning. That's a 1,250 mile trip btw and that snake was packed appropriately and in perfect condition on arrival...as it should be!

Most anyone with any sense will tell you to allow a snake at least one week...that's SEVEN days not FOUR...to settle in. Pushing for a quick feeding can cause a regurge in a snake that's still sorting out the changes in it's environment. A healthy snake should have no problems with this.

Of course if you receive a half freaking frozen snake, that's been dehyrdated for awhile, has nasty bugs on it....well ya might want to listen to this idiot. Personally I'd walk...hell run from this sort of person and his "founder" with the degree in nasty snake keeping.

Gee was I rude?

P.S. Oh and, if one writes a website and has a Doctorate, one should bloody well learn how to spell!