Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I keep my babies in the same room as my adults. I have my have dropped the temps in the snake room preparing for the upcoming breeding season. The babies are in heated racks. So for the past 3 weeks two of my baby boas on the bottom rack have not ate their live hopper mice. I took the boas out right away and noticed they both were raspy. One of which does not flicker its tongue much. I immediately turned up the heat a few degrees (to 91 on hot spot) and moved them from bottom of the rack. Here I am a few weeks later and they still have not ate and still seem kinda raspy. They are babies born in AUG and I do not want them to lose too much body weight, since they do not have much to lose in the 1st place. I believe they have or are getting respiratory infection.

I have treated RI on adults but never babies. What do you guys recommend I use?

Thanks for your replies

Robert
Baker's Boas

remeber heat rises. if you drop the temps in the room then increase temps on the cages for the babies and get the babies of the bottom rack and on the top rack. or move them to another room with normal temp.

I've noticed in most of the photos posted, that people keep their boas on pine shavings or some similar substrate.
That is an extremly dry environment for a boa. Especially a baby boa. Especially when you are running heat.
I keep my snakes on newspaper, with folds for them to get under for security. I spray mist the newspaper almost every day for humidity. I also keep a rather large water bowl in every cage for humidity.
That raspy RI indication, sounds like too dry an environment to me. I suggest you try increasing the humidity.
jsc

Just to comment on substrates, stay away from pine and cedar. Snakes are allergic to the oils in these woods. (Aspen is ok)

Also, when dealing with RIs, dry is better than humid. Avoid soaking and misting until the infection is gone. This is what I have been told by my vet and other experts and it worked well. Just increase the temps to about 92 hot and 85 cool and see if they improve. If they are bad, take them to the vet for antibiotics.

are snakes really allergic to pine shavings and if so, what is your source? I just never heard of it
Bob

As far as the humidity goes, maybe I am wrong and it is better to raise it. This is just what I was told my a friend of mine who has beed keeping and breeding boas for many years. I never tried because I was afraid to after hearing what I was told.

If you look below, I posted something earlier ("advise for this season" about my boas and RI's and maybe you guys can help me out.

And for the pine shavings, that is something I heard from a lot of people on a few forums here in the past. I have never used it personally. My thought on it though, if some people say stay away from it, why find out the hard way when there are so many other great substrates available? I use paper/cage liners, and love them. If you want to use a wood similar to pine, use aspen. No risk and it works great.

It used to be, many many many, years ago that lots of people used Pine Shavings for their reptiles. I'm talking 24 or more years in case you were wondering.

Anyway Pine Shavings was what people used way back then. I used it myself, with no problems. OK, I had one problem, but it wasn't related to the oils in the pine shavings.

Boas and many other snakes did just fine on the pine shavings back then. It was cheap and readily available. I know of people that still use it, without any problems today.

I choose not to use it and I haven't used it in..... 23 years. I've used newspaper and/or liners since the "problem" I had with pine shavings. I don't use any types of wood at all. For me, any wood substrate isn't safe for my boas.

OK, I guess I should tell you about the "problem" I had with the pine shavings.

It happened right after my female Boa gave birth. She had a very large litter. All of them were fine, except for 1. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe it didn't absorb all of it yolk before it was born. Maybe it absorbed it's yolk shortly after birth. When it absorbed it's yolk, after it was born, it also absorbed a piece of the pine shavings. It was a fairly small piece, but it looked HUGE, since it was coming out of my boa's umbilical area. I rushed this little boa to the vet, but it died on the way there. I've never used any type of wood substrate since and I never will.

Snakes are allergic to the resins in the pine and at the same time pine shavings are very "dusty" which if any of you suffer from allergies like i do then you will know what I'm talking about. If you want to try a different substrate then try aspen or supersoil which really can help humidity issues. For the cheap way there is always newspaper as long as you mist when needed.

I've heard both, that pine has too much fragrant oils, but I've also heard that pine is fine and cedar is the only one to avoid -- I really don't know that answer.
But if a Boa has an RI, raising the temps is good, but raising the humidity gets you faster results than lowering the humudity. Lowering the humidity won't "dry out" the mucus, but it will only slow the process by making the mucus thicker and harder to evaporate. I know when I have a stuffed up nose, a nice steamy shower is the best way to break it all up and clearing my sinus passages quicker. My reptile vet had me hook up a nebulizer to a rubbermaid tub and leaving the Boa (with RI) in a tub with antibiotics being breathed in thru the humid air -- great results.
Here's also a small quote from brasher reptiles website --

"Make sure your temps are proper and your cages are kept clean . At the first sign of respiratory distress try quarantining the animal and raising the temperature and humidity before the use of antibiotics ."

Its often the thought that lowering the humidity helps but in fact it slows the process.
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I'm just the snake room janitor

Hi Robert,
I am only giving you my own observations, as I to have dropped the room temp in my room for the up coming breeding season.
Ambient temp of room day time 76 deg night - 70 deg. My babies were born august too, but they seem to be eating fine. At least 3 rat pups every 7 days , I keep them on newspaper ther hot spot is 88 deg. Hope this helps.
Alan
www.rhinovivs.eu