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Snakes losing weight

herby07 Oct 21, 2007 04:35 PM

Hello,
I have some honduran milks that are passing feces and urates daily. They are losing weight and had a really bad breeding season. I'm taking them to the vet this week to see what may be the problem. The only transmission seems to be by breeding and lock up contact. There are only a handful of them, the rest of my collection are flourishing. Symptoms include:

weight loss
daily fecal matter and urates (very liquified)
occasional bloody stool

No regurgitation or lack of eating is seen. Any suggestions what this may be. All are captive bred and come from reliable sources/breeders. I never had any problem in my collection and only affects my hondos.

I was thinking flagyl or panacur may help....suggestions
Thanks in advance
Herb

Replies (2)

Herptiles_net Oct 22, 2007 09:19 AM

If it is indeed something infectious (parasitic, bacterial, fungal or viral infection), then getting a fecal done at the vet would be a good start. Flagyl and Panacur (metronidazole and febendazole) are both specific to certain kinds of infections, so they may do something or nothing, and treating the snakes may be stressing them out for nothing before you find out what's causing the symptoms. I don't like treating an animal without knowing what's going on because of the stress factor, both psychological and physical.

If your Hondurans are strictly isolated from your other snakes, and/or you practice great hygiene, it makes sense that other animals you have are doing well. It's uncommon for pathogens to be super-specific to one species, or one family of animals.

Gastroenteric pathogens are transmitted by the fecal-oral route, meaning the pathogen is passed in the feces, then is transmitted into the mouth of another animal. This could be by tongue-flicking, tracking through feces then introducing them into the water dish, or having food touch feces then be eaten. I should clarify that by "feces," I don't mean physical stool, necessarily. If you clean up the stool, microscopic organisms can remain on the substrate. When you introduce the snakes together, they could have pathogens hanging out on their bodies that are introduced to the uninfected animal's enclosure.

Before the vet visit and until the problem is resolved, consider transferring the animals to a more sterile enclosure that still provides their basic needs (like temp. gradient, water and hides) but is much easier to clean and disinfect. I don't know what you're keeping them on now, but switching them to something disposable like paper towels or newsprint, and giving the enclosures a good, thorough disinfection will help reduce the spread of any pathogens. Treating the environment is as important as treating the animal, because a lot of these nasty bugs will hang out in the enclosure for a long time and can re-infect your animals.

If the fecal exam at the vet shows nothing, other diagnostics may be necessary, like blood tests to check out the general health of the animals. Blood will almost always shows signs of infection that may not be detectable by fecal exam. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have blood taken from one or two of the animals at the same time as the fecal to see what's going on in there, so that if nothing turns up on the fecal at least it will be one stressful vet visit for the snakes, not multiple.

Keep us posted!

Christina
www.herptiles.net

herby07 Oct 22, 2007 02:06 PM

Thanks for the info. I have them isolated and on newsprint. I generally use pretty sterile procedures. Surprisingly, all my hondos have shared the same tub for a holding bin during changing. The ones in the breeding ring, that actually locked up, were the only ones affected. It is almost like an STD (though I know it's not). I actually think it is a bacterial imbalance from last year's breeding season that has past on to the breeding mates. I got them from a reputable breeder and friend.

I don't think it is specific to one locale or type of snake, it just happens to be those in that specific breeding ring. I bet if I were to try to hybridize and breed (not that I would) that that type would become "sick" as well.

I have pretty much everything under control with heat gradients, rack, spacing, hides, etc. I guess that is why I'm perplexed

thanks for the info and I'll keep you posted
herb

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