Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys, some of u may remember my post awhile ago about taking my retic to the vet. He had a groth on the top of his mouth and his left lip was swelled up.
Well Ive been using amicasin for the past few weeks and ive been very pleased the groth has heald and i havent seen any swelling reappear till this morning.
Yesterday was the final injection on my persciption. So u can imagine how i felt this morning to find his lip swollen up again. I have no idea what is causing this. I suspected his heat light previously so ive altered his cage so there is no way to burn himself on his light.
Next on my list is his cypress mulch. During feeding day ,which is today, the snake seems to be very alert. I think hes getting mulch rubbed on his inside lip, just my guess. Both cases occured on feeding day. I'm gonna post pics of everything i can to help gather info. Please let me know what u guys think could be the problem. I'll try to answer questions as soon as possible.

The large (rubbermaid) water bowl is often placed in one of the corners touching the plexi glass. Also i also have a small water bowl in the opposite corner. (cleaning it during pic taking)
A humidity guage is mounted on one side of the cage while the probe attached to the guage is mounted on the other side. The wire ran between the two is stapled to the top of the cage.
You can also see small amounts of the ply wood exposed in the top corners.
sorry about my spelling errors

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1.0 American Alligator
0.0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.0.1 Ball Python
1.1 Retic (normal/super tiger)

You can see the plexi glass is cracked on the left side. it has been "fixed with gorilla glue. u can touch a small amout of dry glue inside the cage. Also it has another crack near the bottom fixed with white silicone u cant touch it from inside the cage.
In another pic u can see the radiant heat panel fixed to the top of the cage.
In the final pic u can see the wire mesh mounted to the top of the cage with a heat light on top of it. It has a wood frame and isnt sharp on the edges and ive never seen the retic rubb on it at all.

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1.0 American Alligator
0.0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.0.1 Ball Python
1.1 Retic (normal/super tiger)

In these final pics u should see a pic of the swelling of his lip. The holes in the 2 corners touching the plexi glass these holes r to allow the bolts in the hinges to close flush u can touch these holes from inside of the cage but the heads of the bolts fill them in. You should also see the "turn buttons" used to hold the plexi closed. The plexi has a strip of weather stripping around the outside of it to provide a tight seal. You cant touch any corners of the plexi.

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1.0 American Alligator
0.0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.0.1 Ball Python
1.1 Retic (normal/super tiger)

more of the swelling

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1.0 American Alligator
0.0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.0.1 Ball Python
1.1 Retic (normal/super tiger)

Looks like mouthrot. Is your vet experienced with reptiles?

could be mouth rot or just swelling based on nose pushing with all that Plexiglass. I have had retics get a permanent snout like that with lip pushed out and puffy upper lateral lips and bulging of the outer upper anterior maxillary area.

if the snake is eating well, has no Upper Resp Infection and acting normally you may want to just put some visual barrier on the plexi so he is less motivated to push at the edges and corners.

Winslow

Is that 2x4 pressure-treated ?

are you talking about the vertical board in the center in between the doors? No its not presure treated. It has polyurithane on the outside and the bathroom tile on the inside.

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1.0 American Alligator
0.0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.0.1 Ball Python
1.1 Retic (normal/super tiger)

this 2x4 looks like its pressure-treated

no its not pressure treated. its coated with polyurithane.
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1.0 American Alligator
0.0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.0.1 Ball Python
1.1 Retic (normal/super tiger)

To me it looks like this retic is a pusher. I’ve gone through this a few times here. There was a time when I would go nuts when I would see signs like this. Now things are different. In my opinion a retic is pushing for some type of reason. Maybe its hungry, temps are not correct, or wants to breed. If you find out the reason usually you can control the pushing and then there are those times you cant.

I hope you fine the cause. Being this size he might be looking for a mate.

Jim

My vet is experienced with reptiles and im pretty sure its not mouth rot.

He is a pusher Jim, your 100% right. I think originaly he was pushing to look for a mate. He went off food late 05. Which was a sign to me "hey im looking for a mate".

But since he has been eating for the past 3 weeks he only pushes on feeding day.
I think his pushing behavior and the cypress mulch played a big part in this swelling. I should have taken your advice and not switched from news paper.

Im considering giving him more amicasin which did a pretty good job prior to this point. He just ate for me last night with the swollen lip. Also im removing all the cypress. What do you think?

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1.0 American Alligator
0.0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.0.1 Ball Python
1.1 Retic (normal/super tiger)

Its funny you mentioned newspaper. I just took a short break from unfolding countless stacks, and removing the sales ads. If he is back on food I would not worry too much at this point. His mouth does not look all that bad. Continued use of the Amikacin could do more harm then good.

Keep him well fed and your problems should be over until next breeding season. This is something that you will have to learn to deal with when you own mature retics, especially males. I wish you the best and dump the cypress, ha, ha, ha.

Jim

I have a male Dwarf retic that drove me mad with his incesant pushing. I fed him more, adjusted his heat, many subsrate changes, hide boxes in or out, nothing would work.
He just turned 5yrs old in Jan 06. He however started the pushing back in July 05. His mouth would get really bad and he would be in and out of the vets office getting injections of Baytril or Amikacin.
Well he stopped for a while and then about two weeks ago he started back up again and is worse than ever. So I am thinking the he is "looking for love". So this weekend I am going to put my female dwarf in and see how it goes. Hopefully it'll will at least chill him out a little. If it works the YAY, Finally!!!! If not, back to to drawing board and the vets.
Thanks

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Christine
Tails With Scales Reptiles
Happiness is biting my snake back!

It dosent surprise me that retics have the largest distribution of any snake. When the breeding season hits in the wild the males must put them selves thru hell to find a female. I hope ur female calms him down. My female super tiger has a long way to becoming breedable.

oh jim, if u see this down here. I removed the cypress and have been watching my male very carefully. The swelling went down slowly every few days and was completely gone the other day but today its feeding time so he has a bit of a lump from him getting excited. Thanks for the help again.
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1.0 American Alligator
0.0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.0.1 Ball Python
1.1 Retic (normal/super tiger)

Thst sounds like a good idea. If the female does calm him down, you might want to think about keeping them together full-time. I know some people will advise against this but you can decide for yourself.
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1.0 Spotted Python
1.0 IJ Carpet Python
0.1 Ball Python
1.0 Variable Kingsnake
1.0 Savannah Monitor RIP
0.0.1 Emperor Scorpion