Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This was originally posted on the cornsnake forum but I assume Baytril dosing is determined by weight- not species.

I know there are many knowledgable folks here.....hoping to tap you for some good info.

Thanks!!

I just wanted to confirm what my vet told me. He doesn't work with reptiles very often.....

Here are all the details:

Corn snake
approx 400 - 450 grams
diagnosed respiratory infection
Baytril shots 0.15 ml (cc)
every 2 days for 28 days (14 shots total)

Does the dosage seem correct??
Also, is there a better shot "schedule" to follow than the 14-shot schedule?

Thanks for your help.

Tomsey

that doesnt sound right but im not a vet mine burmese get 3 shots and he was fine but your snake might have it bad but 14 shots thats a lot brandon

Hmmm. A corn with RI? What did you do, throw it in the freezer. I have never seen a corn get RI - they are a damn hardy species. Have simply tried increasing ambient temps?

On a side note, I don't really like needles around snakes, especially smaller snakes. You can end up doing lots of damage.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

I have never heard of a snake getting that many injections nor would I give that many. The standard dosage is 5-10mg of medicine per kg of snake. I've had to give one snake 21 days of baytril but that was orally not injected (I will never go the oral route again) and the other 2 times I've dealt with RI's it only took 3 injections 2 days apart to cure the problem. When dealing with injections of baytril, make sure you change the site each time as it can cause tissues to become necrotic (die).

NOTE:: 5-10mg/kg is of the amount of baytril that is injected, depending on the concentration of the vial he gave you would depend on the amount of mL that you would give.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

It depends on a lot of things. First, was the RI cultured out to determine the causative agent? If it is viral, baytril may help with secondary bacterial infections, but would not treat a virus. Second, we can't tell you if the dose is right, because we don't know the concentration of the baytril. Third, baytril, and any antibiotic for that matter, can cause kidney damage, and so perhaps that is why your vet is having you dose every 2 days instead of every day. Fourth, injectable baytril is much more effective than oral baytril for RI, so go for the injections. Injections should not cause much if any damage if done properly.
I have had a couple RI cases, and found out the hard way that they can be acute and kill a snake with little warning. Make sure you treat RIs promptly with the appropriate treatment regimen and dose as perscribed by a vet who knows what they are doing. With the snake that died, I had our diagnostic lab veterinarian at the University do a necropsy and she looked the snake over that died. He was in great health and had nice fat bodies and generally looked great except that his lungs were filled with crap. I always thought you could just treat an RI by placing them in a warm humid cage. That may help with more chronic infections, but I would suggest taking any snake that you don't want to lose to a vet or have a throat swab analyzed by your nearest diagnostic lab to appropriately treat the RI. It was a nice deal to know that the vet diagnostic lab at our University would do these kind of tests for around $12/sample to determine the offending organism causing the RI. It is a great resource. It is good to know a vet very well, too.
Best of luck,
Justin
AAR