Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone have experience with that when ballpythons have strong respiratory infections with heaps of mucus that does not get out? I am mainly interested in the appropriate volume and how often it should be done e.g. every 24 hours, once a week...
Thanks for your advice
Soeren

I would strongly recommend having a vet do a lung wash and culture to find out what bacteria you're dealing with and why antibiotics aren't reducing the amount of mucus produced. Increased humidity may help loosen up some of the mucus, and I have also seen minor problems treated like burping small children, most snakes if they are strong enough, can "shake" mucus out of their lungs if they have a suitable inclined surface-since snakes are unable to cough.

Lung washes and cultures and sensitivity tests have been done several times by vets. the bacterial strains are highly resistant against most antibiotics.
the mucus is too thick to get out even at very high humidity and hangig the snakes upside down several times a day. x-ray pics showed that within a few days more than half of the lung is filled up completely with mucus. due to the thickness of the mucus all of this animals finally drowned.
most pythons actually do get rid of mucus pretty easily but i absolutely disagree with that if it comes down to ballpythons.
i mainly wanted to know if dayly lung irrigations could be a way to help keeping the lung free enough so that the animal survives longer and therefore one has a chance to get antibiotics working. time is in this case the critical factor. due to the fact that only a few antibiotics are medium sensitive we have to give them for longer times at higher dosages. and it also takes longer to make them working. but when they start working there is already so much mucus in the lung that the animals down....
thanks for your advice
soeren

Sometimes nebulizing the antibiotics that the organisms are sensitive to will help in those really nasty nonresponsive cases. Plus much less stressful than regular lung washes, which I personally have never heard of being used therapeutically. Just a thought.
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Stacey