Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi

My bf and I (now) have 3 adult red-tail boas and 1 juvenile ball python. Our male red-tail has a chronic respiratory infection we've only just recently had the money to start treating. Our two females recently started the raspy breathing, although they've been in separate tanks, same room, for the last 3 months. There was some co-mingling before that, and for the last three months of last year all three red-tails were in a tank, in a basement, cold enough to cause breeding-- and eventually 21 babies.

The ball python (female) is a recent (a month or so) purchase from a MD expo-- we failed to keep her in quarantine. She seems to be the only healthy one at the moment, though not as easy to feed as the boas. I blame typical ball python finickiness and the fact we're now trying to get her onto f/t food.

The male red-tail has just been diagnosed with IBD based on a CBC screen. We're thinking of setting everyone else up next week with the vet for screening as well.

Everyone has been eating just fine, and is pretty good weight according to the vet, though the male had a few weird things going on in his full bloodwork. Our redish female had a raised head for a couple of days, but I'm hoping that's not "stargazing" but either just her looking for a way out, or maybe having some respiratory issues.

We felt like we'd gotten a death sentence when the vet broke the news to me. We know IBD is fatal and contagious. But when is the "appropriate" point to euthanize? Our females flail a lot at the best of times when we handle them; the male on the other hand, is so quiet and gentle we've handed him around to our friends in public spaces. How do snakes show pain? What is the quality of life once the neurological signs kick in?
I'm sure our vet will have some things to say, but if anyone has gone through this first hand, I'd really like to hear from you.

And how do I search the articles/archives in these forums properly to get articles that anyone may have written on these issues? Searching "IBD" got nothing and "Inclusion Body Disease" got over 2000 results, most of which didn't even have to do with snakes, let alone boids and pythons.

We're scared, sad, and don't want to lose our babies. Who/what are the currently best reference sources/sites?

Sorry about the length of this post.

Antigone

Well, I see that you've run into some problems through some fault of your own, but I believe you already know much of that. Some pointers that came to mind though, just so we are on the same page.

1)Generally, boas don't need cooling to breed. In any case, your temperatures are probably too low, what are they?
2)The respiratory illness. Most likely more related to improper temperatures. It is not a characteristic sign of Inclusion Body Disease, however being immunocompromised is likely.
3)Quarantine. Shoulda, coulda, maybe next time... I know, hard to look back on it now.

Now I do question the diagnoses of IBD if only a blood test was done. The only way this disease can be diagnosed is with visually seeing the inclusion bodies. They are most common to find in the brain, pancreas, and liver. They can also be found in pretty much any other tissue, but in less concentration. Being found in the blood is a fluke, (finding the one cell in a thousand that has the inclusion) and needs to be confirmed by a pathologist since other diseases can make inclusions.

Unfortunately, there is no "screen" for IBD. If you find and confirm the inclusions, then you have a positive. If you don't find any, well, you can never know if you just didn't look in the right place. In addition, it is unknown if asymptomatic carrier animals have inclusions or not.

Now, if you have a confirmation of inclusion body disease there is only one ethical answer in my opinion. All animals in your collection, boid or not, are quarantined for 3-6 months. In addition, your collection should be now considered "closed" for boids. That is, none in, and none out. The last thing you'd want is to bring in a new snake and get it sick, or sell some offspring and spread the disease to other homes. Since no one knows how this disease is transmitted (I have nearly 100% proof that mites don't have to be involved, nor intimate contact), all these precautions are necessary.

As for what to do with your animals? Well, improve the husbandry, try and treat the upper respiratory problems with your vet, and go from there. If at any time you feel that the quality of life is no longer their, nor a likely improvement, then ask your vet for euthanasia. If your snake begins obvious neurological symptoms (if you've never seen star-gazing, it will become very obvious once you do), then I recommend euthanasia.

... I've been interrupted to go pick up the wife from work, if you have any more questions, I'll be back to check in the next day or two.

Ian

Thank you for replying

The male is currently (for the last few weeks) in a 6' x 5' or so walk-in closet with a hanging heat lamp and linoleum floor (with some paper toweling scattered around). Hot spots are in the low 90's and cooler areas in mid 80's. Closet light comes on during the day.
This is in our bedroom and separate from the "snake room" next door.

Before that he was in a 4' x 18" tank (I think), with a ceramic heat on top and paper substrate. The two female red-tails were in similar tanks, one with a heat light, one with a ceramic. The ball was in an even smaller tank, with a heat light.
This was all in our snake room.
Temps for the most part for the last 4-5 months have been controlled and in the appropriate range. The only times they've really gotten cool is when we let them out and around the living room and they hang out next to the sliding glass doors to our porch for too long--we let them out for a half hour sometimes, usually we try to keep them close to us. We've only had them out probaby once or twice a week. I'm not sure why the girls would be showing signs now--and again, I'm hoping that Hopey (the ball) isn't the cause of this.

The vet said that it was a CBC which was run, and that the lab techs looked at the cells under a microscope. Is this sufficient or are you saying that a biopsy is the only way to go short of a necropsy? Please let me know, cos I'd hate to waste money on tests that won't tell me anything useful.

The other thing is that I was told by a breeder to whom we had sold our babies, a juvenile red-tail and our burmese, that he has experience with dealing with upper respiratory infections, and he suggested trying to 'superheat' the snakes to get their immune systems kicked up--- which is to say that he suggested setting their surrounding temp to 90 degrees (no higher than 95), so that they don't have any cool side to go to, and keep them there, day and night for 10 days. Is this a good suggestion? If it is, I don't think that our snake room can be set that high, so I was wondering-- would it be worth breaking the quarantine to put the male back in a tank, and set all three tanks (I'm still thinking that the ball should be kept in a separate closet since she's not exhibiting anything at all) in the walk-in closet for 10 days? Is IBD transmitted by air at all? Is the IBD virus killed by air at all-- ie if one snake slithers across the carpet, if we leave it for a night, do we still need to Lysol the carpet?

As for medications: Fortaz didn't work for Midnight, though it had previously worked on an infection in our burmese. How does Fortaz compare with Baytril compare with Amikacin? And if we're looking at trying to treat a viral upper respiratory, what are the usual anti-virals?

I'm sure that I have a hundred other questions. I can be contacted at atiggeronly1@yahoo.com. Thank you again for your time.

Have a good weekend

Antigone

Your new enclosure sounds good to me. Are all of these snakes now kept together? Either way, don't break the quarantine until this is all solved. The cooling periods you mentioned for handling ect are probably fine. However be carefull with this. I usually don't take my animals outside until temps are greater than 20C (~70F) and then it's only for an hour or so and when it's sunny. The other keeper has a good idea with what he calls super heating, however he might be taking it a little bit far. It's still a good idea to allow some thermal regulation, but bumping the cool side to 85F with the hot side 95 could suffice. This might not be necessary, as this method was usually successfull when respiratory infections were commonly caused by sub-par husbandry. Thus, fixing the husbandry and raising the temps to just an appropriate range might be all that is needed.

As for the CBC, I wouldn't trust it. Not at all. Perhaps if I knew this tech in person, knew they were pretty much the best one ever and had seen IBD inclusion bodies a million times before in the blood... stretching it. I've worked with tonnes of tech's and we all have our strengths and weaknesses, but resting such a critical judgement on a tech's opinion of what they saw in the blood is just not something I'd do. Other things can cause inclusions, whether they look like the disease, or are just mistaken for it is yet to determined. I've seen bacteria in/on blood cells, and parasites (in books, not in person), and it could be other things of course, but not to drag it on...

However, a biopsy can be a costly endeavor. If this is an issue, I might take the diagnosis as tentative, treat it like IBD and see how it pans out. If a snake dies, then you can have your necropsy, which will likely be much cheaper then the biopsy. If the animal's appear to get better with supportive treatment, then I'd just be cautious with further quarantine, treating the animals as if they are possibly carriers of the disease. If things tend to drag on, or for other reasons you decide to have a more secure diagnoses, then go for the biopsy. Furthermore after saying that, remember what I mentioned in the email, that you can prove a positive, but you can't prove a negative, biopsy or not.

As to boid inclusion body disease specifically, there aren't many answers. Frustrating I know, but it still remains in question what virus actually causes the disease. It's guessed that it is a retrovirus, with further guesses that it would act like other retrovirus (a family of virus') and be easily killed with only being transmitted through intimate contact (or blood vectors like mites). Unfortunately there is evidence that this is not the case as well. So, without actually knowing what IBD is, we don't know how it's transmitted, what the risks are ect.
The further you stray from "code red quarantine" with handling, letting out, keeping together, sharing a room, dishes, food, or whatever, the more risk you have. It's a risk that you measure, and the more you know about the disease, the more you can assess this risk for yourself. (k, now I really feel bad about telling you that we don't really know much about this disease)

For antibiotics, they all have pro's and con's. Some have side effects that will kill a snake in one condition, others, will be fine, but kill the next snake... it's a balancing act. As for the ranges of effectiveness, there can be generalizations that the more often a drug is used, the less effective it is. Baytril used to be awesome, but now, while still being great, it just doesn't cut it as much as it used to. Fortaz and amakacin are also used with increased regularity with good success. The end all though, is that some bacteria are killed by some drugs and not others. The best way to choose a drug is to grab some bacteria, grow it, and see which drug kills it. (culture and sensitivity testing) It's not too costly, but many times a vet will try a drug first, and if it don't work, either try another, or then resort to the culture/sens. testing. Either way, the goal is the same, to find the right drug for your particular case.

Good luck with this case. I prefer to answer here so others can learn too, and so I can be corrected if I make a mistake. If you need fast answers you can always email me again at jarico.spock@shaw.ca and I can reply directly to you.

Ian

Greetings and thank you again for your detailed reply

All the females (2 red-tail , 1 ball python) are in the snake room: one in a tank against the left wall, the other two in INDIVIDUAL tanks along the right wall.

The male is loose in the closet in our bedroom.

Our vet left a message for me yesterday that the bacterial cultures had failed to grow ANYthing, but we're still waiting for the fungal cultures to come back. Is this simply an indication that whatever sample was taken died before it could be cultured? Or is it possible that this means that the upper respiratory is viral (if its viral would it be cultured the same way?)?

I also need to clarify that when I say we have our snakes out-- I mean out and about in our living room (and we have not had AC cranking yet, so I'm sure it's stayed at least in the high 70s). The only time they've been "outside" recently is in their recent transports to the vet.

So just to ask one more time: Should we keep the male all by himself, or would it be safe to put him back in a tank, and then move the girls, in their individual tanks, into the same room with him, so that it would be easier to keep the temperatures up --high 80s, low 90s?

I was hoping that your research into the topic would offer more information, or at least an update of some kind, to the void I was getting presented with. *shrug* It is what it is.

We weren't planning on getting more snakes anyway, however we were still contemplating finding homes for the two female red-tails once they had been treated for their upper respiratory infections. This kinda changes things a bit.

Have a good rest of your weekend.

Antigone

If your other snakes are not boids, then concentrate on keeping the temperatures proper. There is very little chance of transmission to a non-boid, however keep things super clean and otherwise quarantined just in case. I would feel comfortable if everything was in one room. Your 2 boas and one ball python, are probably all of the same status, which again brings to question the diagnoses, since the python is quite likely to succumb to the disease quickly.

For now, concentrate on treating the resp. infection. The sample was likely defective somehow as a no-growth is rarely representive of the sample. Virus' should need a biopsy for diagnoses, however ask your vet about this. It is not the same culture as with bacteria however.

Tell any potential adoptors of your snakes the situation, and make sure they go to a "one snake home". Even if the diagnoses is true, boas can live long happy lives with the disease provided symptoms have not begun (apparently anyways, I'm not sure if this is verified fact).

Ian

Good afternoon:

Spoke with a vet from the clinic yesterday (not our treating vet--she's on vacation for another day or two). Told her about the things we've been discussing here and about the suggestions from the breeder (the 'superheating'). She agreed that 95 across the board might be a bit high but that bumping up the hot and cool temps 5 degrees might be good. She also agreed with focusing on treating the pneumonia for now-- but it will be up to our treating vet as to what the drug of choice will be.
We may be looking at putting the male and two female red-tails on a baytril/amikacin combo (at least that was my understanding of what she told me). *shrug* Still waiting for the fungal culture.
Sadly, from the numbers she was giving me as a very loose ballpark for taking biopsies (assuming that Midnight would even be physically capable of undergoing surgery), I don't think we're going to be able to afford it. We'll treat what we can, and hope for the best.

Antigone

Good luck, I wish you well,

Ian