Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, we are half of a week into raised temps and daily shots and I'm not seeing any difference yet. I got a Linksys monitoring camera so I can keep an eye on Annika while I'm at work. She spends most of her time moving around trying to find a way out. She occasionally takes a little rest, usually with her mouth open. Is there something more I should be doing or do I just need to be more patient? How long does it take to recover from RI? I am really concerned about all this heat and moving around after a couple months of no food. Maybe some mouse pinkies should be offered?

Also, DMong, you mentioned that you prefer under-the-tank heaters. What brand do you use and what kind of enclosures do you use?

thanks for the help!

jorj

Well, from the time treatments start, it's going to take probably a week or so to really start to see any "real" difference I would think, but it really depends on many things, every situation is different, and every animal is different, this also greatly depends on the severety, which I suspect is pretty substancial as well from it's behavior and gaping. The snake as you could imagine is very uncomfortable.

Also, I have no idea what type, or what dosage your vet recommended you give the snake. Below is a list of some antibiotics that are commonly used for reptiles.

#1 Amikacin, and #5 Baytril are very well known reptile antibiotics, and I have personally used them before with success in the past. Do yourself a favor, and check to see if your vet prescribed one of these for your snake, and see if his dosages match these as well,...THAT way, we'll know if he seems to know what he's doing. Of course there are certainly other drugs that are also used that are NOT on this list too, but if he is using any of these, the dosages your vet recommended should closely match up.

ANTIBIOTICS
1. Amikacin sulfate (Amiglyde-V). Can administer a loading dose of 5 mg/kg IM and then 2.5-3.0 mg/kg every 72 hours for 5 treatments total. Potentially nephrotoxic so animals should be well hydrated.

2. Ceftazidime (Fortaz). This human cephalosporin drug has proved to provide good broad spectrum activity in a variety of reptiles with the advantages that its half life is long and it kills Pseudomonas. Dose is 20 mg/kg IM or SC Q 72 hours

3. Chloramphenicol (Chloromycetin). A bacteriostatic drug administered either IM or IV at a dose of 30-50 mg/kg/day for 7 to 14 days. Good activity against many gram negative bacteria but a potential human health hazard.

4. Clindamycin. A drug that is effective against anaerobic organisms when used at a dose of 5.0 mg/kg PO Q 24 hours.

5. Enrofloxacin (Baytril). A quinolone compound that appears to be safe and effective in reptiles. May be used IM, SQ and PO at a dose of 5-10 mg/kg/day for 7-21 days. May be diluted with sterile saline since the concentrated form (2.27%) may be irritating.

6. Gentamicin sulfate (Gentocin). A potent aminoglycocide which takes care of most gram negative organisms. Has a smaller therapeutic window than amikacin and may be more nephrotoxic. Animals must be well hydrated. Dosed the same as amikacin.

7. Trimethoprim sulfadiazine (Tribrissen). A good broad spectrum antibiotic. Dose is 15-25 mg/kg/day IM for 7-14 days.

Living in south Florida, I don't really need to use much in the way of heaters, and in the winter, I use a space heater for the entire room. But on occasion I have simply used a generic heating pad bought from any drug or department store. Use one that has several settings, and start with the "LOW" setting underneath approx. 1/3 or so of the enclosure. Keep in mind, you MUST do a trial FIRST with this to make sure it doesn't get too hot, remember, it depends on if you have a solid top with only small holes, or screen lid, etc... this is what will dictate how much heat is retained, or lost, so you must ajust accordigly. Jut common sense here really. Just play it safe and set the enclosure with the heating pad on something that's not flammable, or can get too warm. Make some adjustments if you have to, by using different things around the house to add more direct spacing from the mat if need be. Just make sure you monitor temps with a thermometer, and DO NOT GUESS!

best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

The medication I got from the vet is called "Cefazolin". I have 3/10 ml insulin syringes (the measurements on them go up to 30) and the dose I give is 5 on the syringes. By my math, thats .05 ml. I did grow up on a farm, so giving animals shots isn't entirely new to me (I remember giving baby pigs shots when I was in grade school) but it has been a while and I still haven't quite perfected it. This morning I noticed some of the medication leaked back out after I injected it.

Right now, my biggest concern is getting food in her. It seems to me that fighting an infection would be easier with some energy from food.

thanks for the reply

jorj

Cefazolin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic, so it should do some good here, although I'm not personally familiar with it's use in reptiles, that certainly doesn't mean it's not a good one for this situation. So we will assume it is.

Well, the true irony of snakes getting sick, is the fact that they also do not eat, this is VERY typical. Unless the snake is very very thin, and on it's "last leg", I wouldn't worry about it until it starts to come around from the RI. Staying HYDRATED though is of utmost importance with the antibiotic use.

If the snake is pacing around in the enclosure, and still gaping, I'd bet money that it will not be interested in food,...but you can try if you want.

If it is really emaciated though, you could tube feed some egg mixture to keep it going for now, but this can also stress it too, and as I said before, unless it is REALLY thin now, I would just wait a little while longer until she ate on her own, so you must use some judgement here.

hope things progress well!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

I forgot to mention earlier........the snake is having a very hard time breathing right now due to the RI, so of course the snake isn't going to want to try to stuff a huge meal down it's face to make it's breathing that much tuffer in the process, so if you DO offer it a meal, offer one or two VERY VERY small dead meals that will make it easy for her to gulp them down without any effort, and without impeding here glottis tube(wind pipe) in the lower jaw that is used for breathing,...this is EXTREMELY important.

Also, even when it gets better, do NOT offer it huge meals!.....many people have the impression that giving a thin, sick snake frequent, and/or large meals is a good thing to put weight on the animal, when in fact, it is the very worse thing to do. thin sick snakes that haven't eaten in a very long time lack the proper amount of acid, enzymes, and electrolytes to properly digest meals that would normally be able to be digested properly, and quite often end up regurgitating the meal,..this in turn starts a very fast and serious downward spiral for the snake,...when if a much smaller meal was offered in the first place, this would have allowed the stomach to GRADUALLY aclimate itself back to proper function again.

~Doug

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

A thunderstorm woke me up a bit early so I thought I would check on the snake. What I found really caught me off guard - she is laying eggs. She has never been bred before! These are just duds then, right? This is new to me!

jorj

They are probably duds.
I do not know of documented parthenogenesis in corn snakes, but a few years ago a female eastern king laid eggs who hadn't been with a male in seven years, and some of them hatched. Parthenogenesis or really long sperm retention, I don't think that was determined.

If they are small and yellow and somewhat slimy, then they are probably infertile.

Show pics of the eggs.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

I didn't think they were that small and they didn't look yellow but they are under red heat lamps. When I took a picture the flash definitely made them look yellow. I went and got a flashlight and yes, definitely yellowish.

Maybe this explains why she was moving around almost non stop the last few weeks - she was looking for a suitable place to drop these off.

As though I'm not worried enough about the RI, then she has to go and do this to me! I'm actually starting to feel sick from worrying about her so much! Anyway, given this new development, I am going to postpone todays shot until after work so as not to disturb her.

jorj

I certainly hope they aren't being KEPT under a heat lamp. Snake eggs are supposed to be kept in a moist medium of vermiculite, and/or Perlite. A good "target" temperature is between 80-82 degrees.

Below are some eggs from a milksnake, so they are larger than cornsnake eggs, but the setup is the exact same.

They are more than likely infertile, but good eggs can also be anywhere from white/off white, to a beige color and still be perfectly fine,...but as FunkyRes also mentioned, if the eggs are hard, or very yellow, or slimy, the eggs are NOT viable. It would be nice to see some pics though.

That is definitely ONE of the contributing factors as to the snake not eating,.....but they also will not eat with the remaining RI problem either until it starts to subside.

The snake is more than likely going to look like skin and bones after all this,........so if she does look severely emaciated, do as mentioned in my previous post, and only offer VERY small meals,........if she's willing to eats at all. But DO NOT disturb her until ALL eggs are deposited, as this will stress her even further.

I would wait until the day AFTER she lays the eggs to do this, that way, she can begin to get re-situated again.

WHAT NEXT?....hahaha!

good luck!, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Ok, I'm home from work. Annika is still alive and not moving around anymore. She's not gaping anymore either, which I take to mean either she is getting better or she is too weak to care. I can see seven eggs and all are yellow - not too surprising as I have never even had a male snake. Annika has never been bred and I didn't cool her down this winter, so I was not expecting this at all!

Anyway, I think I am going to try to feed her a mouse pinky this evening. If that goes well, I'll feed her a few more. Just a few very small things to get her digestive system up and running again.

There should be a picture attached at the bottom.

jorj

Those eggs are definitely slugs.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

Right now she is looking pretty good. She is breathing fine and not gaping. She is curled up almost exactly like she was in the picture I posted earlier. Right now, I am trying to decide if I should skip todays shot and not disturb her or gently take her out to medicate her. She definitely looks like she has more eggs even though she hasnt dropped any for a few hours.

jorj

I personally would suggest you do not skip the shot. Last thing you want is for a bacterial infection to develop a resistance to the anti-biotic.
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I decided my old sig was too big.

No gaping is a good sign,.....I think it would be best if you didn't disturb her right now for a shot, and resume with the shot tomorrow. This will give more time to see if she'll go ahead and lay the other possible remaining infertile eggs.

When you take her out tomorrow, gently feel down her lower body to make sure all bad eggs were deposited.

She really doesn't look that emaciated, so that is another good thing. She has enough body mass to carry her through this if she still refuses to eat the smaller meal until she "shakes" the RI.

Keep up the good work, and hopefully you have learned a good lesson with all of this. Let us know how she does later on.

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"