Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One of my females has a problem with this. Any idea's on how to get her going in the other direction? I have tried smaller meals, flagyl treatments, extra heat, and letting her be for a couple of weeks. Nothing really seems to help. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Have you had her in to be checked by a vet yet? That is the number one first thing I would do, if I couldn't figure it out myself. There are many diseases and parasites which will cause regurgitation, and most of them are treatable, with at least one exception - cryptosporidium, which is incurable and fatal. It would be a good idea to have the snake's fecals tested for crypto, using an acid fast stain - and also tested for other parasites and diseases. Crypto can spread like wildfire in a collection, so it is best to quarantine any suspect anuimal from the rest of the collection. Snakes suffering with crypto are usually euthanized. Other symptoms of crypto (besides regurgitation) are rapid weight loss, a firm mid-body swelling, and foul smelling diarrhea.

Search for: Cryptosporidium serpentis

Also, what species is the snake? Not all species will respond well to warmer temps - certain Old World ratsnakes need cooler temps than most of our New World rats...

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-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

I'd have to agree with concerns about parasites. Generally a dose of panacur and flagyl in liquid suspension will be the treatment if parasites are suspected.
If you do take your snake to the vet a fresh or a recent fecal sample is a must!
That will enable the vet (or the vets lab) to find parasite eggs, castings or parasites themselves and identify the specific culprit.
I've been that route and along with the Panacur and/or flagyl that will kill the parasite, an antibiotic may be added to aid in recovery.
I am familiar to treatment and proper dosing now so anything new to my collection automatically recieves P&F suspensions.
If you don't know anyone familiar with it and you are unsure about dose measurement, follow your vets reconmendations.

One thing you don't hear alot about and I swear by is to follow up with some type of probiotic dusting on the food items to help the animal regain the "good bacteria" in its system. This aids greatly in digestion and stimulates appetite.
I've got nothing to gain by endorsing a specific product but I use Nutribac. It is not hype.

Sometimes healthy snakes regurge and are tough to get to feed again without regurging. Temps can sometimes be the culprit, don't let the temp drop after feeding. Sometimes too much or too large an item that does not digest in the time it should will cause a regurge.

So lets go with the assumption that the snake is regurging for one of the above reasons and is not due to parasites. It is otherwise healthy.
Don't push it to feed too soon after regurging. Skip a feed.
The next time offer a much smaller food item. A pinky or crawler to an adult snake is not out of the question here. Sprinkle a little of the Nutribac powder on the back half of the mouse. Mine are frozen thawed in hot water so being damp the powder sticks well. Then leave the snake alone for a couple of days to let the meal settle.

What we are trying to do is calm the snakes stomach and jump start the system.

Offer again in five days with a more normal portion say two mice with a little dusting again. I think you'll see a remarkable improvement in the snakes appetite.
After that feed normally.

I also feed light and dust the mice when taking the snake out of brumation and for females after egg laying.
I tell you the stuff its everything they say it is!

Good luck with it.
Mike.

Brock, on cryptosporidium, Flaygl can be effective against it if treated early.

With all parasites, cleanliness is the best defense.
Keep those water bowls clean! Wash don't just rinse them.
Aspen shavings clumped and newspaper bedding soiled with fecal matter needs to be removed asap.Gnats and fruit flys breed in the fecal matter.

Gnats / fruit flys can spread parasites from one enclosure to another.
To combat this I have a central light in the middle of the room with a timer that provides gentle light through the day.
I have fly tape looped next to the light that nails'em as the are drawn to the lamp.
I also have soda bottle bottoms with apple cider vinigar and a drop of dish soap. The ACV draws them in and the dish soap cuts the surface tension letting the gnats drown.
These two solutions have kept them in check for me.
Note regular vinigar works but apple cider vinigar works much better.
Mike.

>>Brock, on cryptosporidium, Flaygl can be effective against it if treated early.

Mike, I will agree with you on everything else you've said - but... Everything I've read and heard is that nothing is effective against crypto. Is this a new finding - Flagyl working against it? I'm not knocking what you said - but can you tell me where you came by this info? My local vet used to work for Dr. Douglas Mader, and he has never heard of anything working against crypto. I also have Mader's second edition manual (as well as several other herp medicine books), and I don't remember seeing anything about this. It would be great news if Flagyl was found to be effective against crypto, so I am really interested...
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-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

Brock, crpto is all but impossible to cure and panacur is not effective at all against it. I'm sorry but my handbook on reptile parasites isn't handy so I can'y quote directly from it but the only listed treatment is with flagyl. Its "understanding reptile parasites" I got it from the bean farm and it is very good.

< http://beanfarm.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=parasites >

In the book they will tell you crpto is next to impossible to cure but recomends flagyl saying if there is a chance its early on.
At $12 this book is good to have. It'll give you a working knowledge on identifing a problem, its cause and its treatment. Buy it, you'll thank me.

You don't need PHD to understand whats written as some I have. My wife bought me one written by a vet for vets which was about $150. Its dry as hell to read and I'm not ashamed to say as I don't have a veternary degree alot of it goes over my head. As thick as it is I got so much more workable knowledge from that $12 book.

I'm not one to raise the white flag and have brought snakes back from deaths door from a number of different malodys including lung worm infestations.
I have lost two to what I suspect was crpto before I had much understanding on parasites and what was going on. Those two had intesional bulges that I credited as impaction at the time.
I suspect that it would have marched through my collection if I had not stepped up my efforts on cleanliness.
Later on a new asian blue beauty introduced lung worms to my collection that those damned gnats spread around. With an eleventh hour cram learning all I could about parasites and a trip to the vet for antibiotics along with dosing the whole collection with panacur and flagyl saved most of what I had.
You know a good reptile vet is a rarity.
I went to a VCA clinic that had a reptile vet. Funny thing was that she used her general vet knowledge and bounced the reptile related questions off of me for what I knew and used my resource manuals on reptile veternary care for dosing and treatment.
Made me feel like who was helping who?
I did get antibiotics and needles. That I couldn't get elsewhere.
The bill was healthy to.

Now I use what I've learned myself and knock wood, I can tackle most health issues that pop up.
Back to crypto, the two that I had buldges in, if I saw that now I'd use flagyl but with it gone so far unchecked to show intestinal blockages of crypto, I wouldn't have much hope.
Got to get to them early. All of the previously mentioned symptoms along with runny stool, I'd go ahead and dose with panacur and flagyl...if you can get flagyl in liquid form

I got mine from a vet that sold it on this site in a liquid form which was imported from mexico. Seems they use it down there to cure "Montizuma's revenge"
All you get through US suppliers is in tablet form for dogs which you could crush and convert to liquid suspension (proper dosing is sketchy though)

Ok,I might as well touch on lung worms while I'm at it.
Symtoms: wheezing, open mouth breathing, regurge which can sometimes be filled with blood. Sounds really bad and it is but I've brought snakes back from all these symptoms with panacur and antibiotic. This was then followed with Nutribac to "reset" the digestive system.

Sorry to say it isn't a perfected science yet but as I said I'm not one to raise the white flag. The key is to educate yourself on it to indentify the problem, find the cause, and give proper treatment. Then as you've found the cause work on preventing it from happening again because if you don't, it will.
Mike.

Mike... I have had Klingenberg's "understanding Reptile Parasites" for many years. I just scanned the section on crypto, and find no mention of Flagyl. My edition is from 1993, so I don't know if there is a newer edition. However, since Flagyl was already commonly used for other treating other conditions in snakes (and is mentioned on the following page (p. 65, 66) for treating flagellates), if it was found to be useful in treating crypto, it should say so in my copy. I think it would be rather big news in the snake keeping community if Flagyl were suddenly to be found to cure crypto - and I find no evidence of this in print yet. Quote from my copy of "Understanding Reptile Parasites": "To date, cryptosporidiosis is thought to have no treatment." (p.65)... Medications listed are Trimethoprim-Sulfa - which Klingenberg states has not worked for him. And, "a mixture of A/D (Hills Foods) and lactated Ringer's solution" (p. 65) which he said he had used to "stabilize", not cure, infected animals.

I also have several other reptile medicine books, including Douglas Mader's "Reptile Medicine and Surgery - Second Edition", which I believe was a $150 book when I bought it a few years ago. This is a much more in-depth book (a real veterinary manual) with a large section devoted to crypto, and IMO is worth its price as well. I fail to see how one would catch crypto early - by the time a snake is showing symptoms, it is too late. Those symptoms being regurgitation, mid-body swelling, wasting away, diarrhea - all symptoms of well developed cryptosporidiosis. There is no mention of Flagyl being effective against crypto at any stage in this book - but several other medications hve been researched. None have shown to be a 100% cure. The most promising is hyperimmune bovine colostrum.

From what I understand from everything I have read and heard, crypto can go into sort of a remission, and the snake will not shed oocysts during this time - but the snake will most likely be a life-long carrier. Cryptosporidium is a very tough coccidian parasite - and there is very little which will actually even kill it. Strong UVA / UVB (sunlight), extreme dessication for 6 months (or more), extreme heat, and undiluted ammmonia are the only known "kills" I have heard about. Undiluted chlorine bleach does NOT even kill it...

-Toby

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-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

Toby, ok your right. I didn't have the book when I last posted and having it now, 2nd edition '07, I dug it out.
I'm betting not much has changed since the first edition.
While thinking of crypto I confused it with treatment for another intestinal parasite amoebas & flagellates where flagyl is first choice.
While I was wrong there I was half wrong...
Crypto gets interesting as there are 6 different recommended medications. Apparently Klingenberg doesn't raise the white flag to quickly either. As you said HBC hyperimmune bovine colostrum treated over 6 weeks is said to have had some success but, trimethoprim sulfa is listed as being first choice and is said to be very effective against crypto's kiss'in cousin coccidia.
Treatment again is everyday for 2 weeks then once a week for...? (doesn't say???)
The other 4 treatments say that it helps but does not eliminate the parasite. I won't go through the bother of listing the other 4 since Roger says they won't eliminate the parasite so whats the point right?

So sorry with thinking it was flagyl when it was trimethor..whatchcallit. Flagyl works for alot of stuff and well in my defense I guess its just easier to remember.
I may have gotten the med wrong, but I knew there is still hope if crpto is the cause.
Mike.

"I also have several other reptile medicine books, including Douglas Mader's "Reptile Medicine and Surgery - Second Edition", which I believe was a $150 book when I bought it a few years ago."

Yep, same one I have. It does have alot of good in it but I still think its dry as hell to read.
Ended up reading further into crypto finding in which all the medications recommended have side effects like kidney damage. Sounds like one of the many medication commercials with the disclaimers that scare you after the tell you how miraculous the new drug is. (anal bleeding, death...We may never know it in creases suicidal thoughts)

Sad to say the meds that would have an effect against the crypto would seriously weaken the animal in other ways. While I hate to give up on anything, its for that reason, the crypto or the cure killing the snake (ironic as it is) I may have to agree that a case of crypto is grim.
Mike.