Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Same baby Sinoloan, now 2 months old and growing fast dispite illness.

The vet did a culture on a nares swab and found no bacterial infection, although signs of respitory infection are present, bubbles, mouth opening, wheezing, nose rubbing. What are we dealing with then, a virus? Allergy?

Still eating and about to shed for the 2nd time in 5 weeks.

Allergies to some substrates or dust from some substrates can happen. Try moving the snake to newspaper for a few days and see if there is any change. Can't hurt.

Until last week I had him on a fine sand, but I changed it to corser grained calci-sand because it looked like the sand was sticking to his face and annoying him. We will see if it makes a difference!

it could be part of the problem. Sand can be dusty. I think that paper towels would be a better choice right now. If you want to go with a loose substrate, I would recommend aspen, but make sure that you feed outside the enclosure whenever using a loose substrate to avoid ingestion of the substrate. Of course you know never to use cedar and many people say not to use pine with a snake.
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sue

I was using the sand recommended at the pet store where I had got my previous snake, a Cal King, who lived on it quite happily for a year, enjoying digging holes.

I dumped it last week and hope it will make a difference. I am also giving gentamicin drops into nares. Still no difference except that he does not seem so snotty (no bubble blowing) although still gasping every few breaths. He has been eating, although he now seems slower to digest - 6 days and no poop but he took another mouse today.

I feed the smakes in an entirely different cage, the portable one I use for vet visits, with only paper towels on the ground.

I had a similar situation with a variable King that was VERY sensitive to any dust. I took him off shredded aspen (which for Kings is much more preferable than sand in my opinion) and put him on paper towels and his sniffles disappeared in less than 24 hours. I have tried switching to other substrates that appeared less dusty a few times, but every time it starts him sneezing again. He will also react if he has any traces of Virosan (cage cleaner) left in his cage. I recommend that you put him on paper towels, confirm that he has enough heat (maybe even bump it a few degrees for a few days) and make sure NO traces of cleaners are present. This is what I do at the early stages of R.I. and it nips it in the bud 99 out of 100 times.

Incidentally I have found that Pet stores, while well meaning, have often been the source of misinformation. I myself would defer to the advice of many of the old-timers on this board first. That's just my opinion of course.

Good luck, tell us how things turn out.

You guys were right, it was an allery! Within a week of changing the substrate and cleaning out the cage with natural products he is breathing normally and just had a nice, clean shed.

Thank you all for the advice!

next time you are in that pet shop, you might want to point this out to them. Hopefully, they will listen and the next person who buys a snake will get better advice. I hope that you are not keeping a heat rock or heat cave in the cage on the advice of the pet shop.

On a separate note, it would be nice if you could post a pix of your new baby soon. I would love to see it.
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sue

Fortunately they did know better regarding the hot rock and steered me towards a light instead! I will tell them about the sand. This is the store where I buy all my supplies for my fish tank so I am in fairly often.

I'll try to figure out the picture thing one of these days soon!