Reptile & Amphibian Forums

9/10 month old Burm has had respiratory infection problems the majority of her life. We've tried anti-biotics, warming her cage, soaking her 2-3x per week, plenty of humidity in the house, etc. It keeps hanging on (gets better, then starts to get worse again).

Any ideas before I take her to the vet again?

Dan

She is incredibly young to be experiencing respitory problems. When you say the majority of her life, you mean since she was just a few months old?? Strange, the young snakes rarely develop problems such as these. In any event, here's my advice,..

I have never truly seen/experienced permanent positive results from administering antibiotics to a snake. Even if the ailment DOES clear up, if the conditions under which the snake contracted the RI still exist then it will contract it yet again. And the next time it would be worse since the snake would have an increased weakness/suscepibility to it. So there really is no magic bullet, but there are preventive measures and practices. And these same preventive measures are also the best cure. This being to create idealic jungle conditions/climate. If she doesn't already have a large cage, build her a large cage, or buy her one,.. keep the ambient temps steady and regular between 86 and 92 degrees. Buy a digital humidity indicator (20 bucks at Wal-Mart) and place it in the cage. If her humidity is under 75% get a cool mist humidifier at Wal-Mart (40 bucks) and install this in a safe manner, or channel the humitity into the cage via PVC pipe. With this on low and maybe on a timer on an "hour on-hour off" setting around the clock you should achieve humidity in the mid 90's. This is perfectly fine. I run my rooms at 90 to 99% humidity. The wood warps some and it's often unbearable to work in, but the snakes love it and so it stays. If you do these things the RI should clear up within a month and all of these things would cost a lot less than a vet visit and subsequent, yet pointless meds.

>>9/10 month old Burm has had respiratory infection problems the majority of her life. We've tried anti-biotics, warming her cage, soaking her 2-3x per week, plenty of humidity in the house, etc. It keeps hanging on (gets better, then starts to get worse again).
>>
>>Any ideas before I take her to the vet again?
>>
>>Dan
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It isn't "Ideas" that fail or succeed,... it is the "Systems" which are instilled to launch and sustain the idea that either fail or succeed.>[Me.]

Brian is right on and we have discussed this issue of antibiotic therapy versus homeopathic therapy. We have had our best success when keeping convalescing animals at high temps and high humidity levels. We do resort to antibiotics in severe cases but most of the time, it just takes a better environment.

Rob Carmichael, Director/Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
City of Lake Forest Parks & Recreation