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Tangerine Honduran...sick?

Sybella May 19, 2003 02:50 AM

I have a feeling something is wrong with my Tangerine Honduran. I bought her just over a month ago. She ate a few times in the first 2 weeks I had her, then stopped eating when she was going to shed. Everything seemed to be fine but since her shed, she still has been refusing food.

Also, she's had some really strange potty...She hasn't eaten in probably 3 weeks yet every few days, I find a puddle of white-foamy looking slime. I have a "feeling" she is sick but I can't pinpoint it. The potty is a little alarming but I can't figure out what may be the problem. Is there anything that causes this that has a long incubation period?

Replies (2)

oldherper May 19, 2003 08:03 AM

She may very well be sick. Or, she may be fine. Unless you take a stool sample to a vet for analysis, you are just guessing. Are you absolutely positive that the white foamy "slime" is stool? Did you observe her leaving it? Or, are you just surmising that's what it is? Are there any white or yellowish chalky solids with it (uric matter)? Could it be regurgitated stomach contents? What does it smell like? Has she exhibited any other symptoms, such as mouth breathing? Any neurological symptoms like head-waving or "star-gazing". Is she still taking water? How does she act when you pick her up or handle her? Is she crawling through your hands actively trying to get away (as they normally do) or is she just limp and listless? Are you, because of your concern, handling her too much and stressing her?

If the loss of appetite and abnormal stool are the only symptoms, then that would be indicative of a parasitic infection of the intestinal tract and you are probably safe just scooping the fecal matter into a clean medicine bottle or 35mm film canister and taking it to a vet for analysis. When you do, ask him/her for 2 or 3 Fecalyzer collection kits to make future collection easier. If there are any other symptoms, or you don't know, then you need to take the snake to a good herp vet and have her checked out. Most of the things that affect colubrid snakes are easily treatable if detected early, such as pinworms, roundworms, hookworms, giardia, entamoeba, pseudomonas, coccidia, etc. The real killer is cryptosporidium. If that is detected, then that animal will likely need to be destroyed along with all of it's cage furnishings and probably the cage itself, and it MUST be isolated from the rest of your collection immediately. There has been VERY limited success with treating crypto with sulfa-based drugs, probably in the 1% range. The risk to the rest of the collection isn't worth the extremely low probability of curing the animal without infecting the other animals. It is easily vectored from one cage to another by the keeper (as are many other pathogens), particularly if he doesn't disinfect his hands between cages, or puts the animals in holding cages while cleaning and doesn't disinfect the holding cage between animals. Luckily, it is relatively rare at this point, and seems to affect boids and certain viperids or crotalids more often than colubrids and elapids. Another killer is Inclusion Body Disease, which also affects mainly boids, but I'm sure it can probably be transmitted to other families.

sybella May 19, 2003 02:59 PM

Thank you for your reply, Old Herper!

No, there are no other symtoms...She's active and appears healthy in every other way. I haven'y actually seen her express this milky fluid...I just couldn't imagine it coming from anywhere but her vent! LOL! If it was coming from her mouth or nose, I thought I'd see some evidence on her face so I ruled that out.

I haven't been holding her very much...she's always been a moody one. She bit the crud out of me when I was picking her out at the store but I knew she just hadn't been handled enough and I bought her anyway. I wanted to take it slow with her. As a general rule, I try to hold each of my snakes at least every other day. But, because she had eaten, I didn't hold her for a couple days to let her digest...then, the next thing I knew, she was getting ready to shed and was "nervous" again. And, now this weird thing going on is "telling" me to give her some space. The most I've done was picked her up to make sure she wasn't laying on any potty or this mystery stuff in her bark. I'm picky about clean cages.

I wrote Brian Smith about this too. He suggested that it was reabsorbtion and digestion of egg material...It is spring and she didn't mate. It could very well be that I was worried over nothing but I'll keep a close eye on her and see.

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