this has been a long time in coming and i've really held onto this little guy and pushed for his survival, but he doesn't seem to care for it. button was the runt of the clutch, about half a year after i got him he stopped eating, started losing weight, and apparently got a respiratory infection. we went through a round of baytril and one of fortaz, force fed him some; then he started eating on his own for a few weeks, stopped; we force fed him some more; he still had all the signs of the infection so we did both antibiotics again, but nothing really helped; one day i decided to try and feed him a live pink and he ate them steadily every week or two, but still had the infection.



vet finally put him on clavamox, and he seemed to get better, but then he began to accumulate gas in his lower intestines; with some gentle smoothing i can help him to get it out but it keeps filling up, he still can't breathe right, still has bubbles in his mouth, and now for the past two weeks he's stopped eating again - he'll attack the mouse after a few hours, kill it, and leave it alone, just trying to get out of the tub and back underground. he also seems almost aggressive - though that could certainly be attributed to how many times i've had to pry his mouth open for medicine, or how i've tried to simulate the random jerky movements a baby mouse makes in his face, once he's killed them and lost interest - obviously no attempted strikes, but he'll push and thrash his body around when he gets fed up with it.



it's worth mentioning that i got two of these guys from the same clutch and the other has never had any of these problems, even being housed together at first, and is three times as big around alone as button is now.



basically my inquiry is a) does anybody think there's anything else to be done, and b) how could i put him down painlessly without damaging his body? it breaks my heart to see this year of struggle go to nothing but i can't imagine being sick and anorexic all of your snakey life is really worth it.

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