Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had a problem with one of our rainbows last year and it cleared up very well after a course of injectable Ceftazidime.

Has anyone else had any experience treating RI's in Rainbow's, and comments on the above drug or suitable alternatives?

Many thanks in advance.

Herpconsultants,
. Ceftazidime (Fortaz) is a broad spectrum gram negative abx that I have seen work quickly on human respiratory and urinary infections. I cannot get it to use on snakes. I used Penicillin for many years on snake respiratory infections with only fair results. I started using Amikacin 10 years ago and have had great results with it.
Jeff

>>I had a problem with one of our rainbows last year and it cleared up very well after a course of injectable Ceftazidime.
>>
>>Has anyone else had any experience treating RI's in Rainbow's, and comments on the above drug or suitable alternatives?
>>
>>Many thanks in advance.

Cheers for your reply Jeff. I actually just saw a post on the Burmese Forum which may be of interest:

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=10373,11200

It relates to the use of a drug called Tylan, and Jeff Ronne seems to like it!

Do I understand correctly that you have never used Ceftazidime (as opposed to never had it work?)?

Thanks, again
Tylan Article

>>Cheers for your reply Jeff. I actually just saw a post on the Burmese Forum which may be of interest:
>>
>>http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=10373,11200
>>
>>It relates to the use of a drug called Tylan, and Jeff Ronne seems to like it!
>>
>>Do I understand correctly that you have never used Ceftazidime (as opposed to never had it work?)?
>>
>>Thanks, again
>>Tylan Article

The vet I work for uses tylan for companion rats with R.I. and it seems to work well. I always thought he was kind of old-fashioned, but maybe I should rethink that.

Fortaz is sold only by the box, about 15 bottles per box. These bottles only have a shelf life of about one year. Many vets are reluctant to buy it because they won't use it all. If they do buy it, they have to charge a lot for each bottle just to cover the cost of the unused bottles. My Vet suggested that I just buy the whole box, which I did for about $350. I think that works out to about $22 per bottle. What to do with the rest? Hey, you'd be surprised how many friends you have when you have Fortaz, for $22 a bottle.