Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok, sort of long so please bare with me. i have had my second ball for about three months now, i got him as a rescue from the local petco, becasue he was the only one left of their shipment and they wanted to get him out. he's not a year old yet, so still a baby. when i got him he was skiny, i took him to the vet, had him sexed checked over and everything. he had internal paracites, not shocked at all about this, and he was given a oral med and ashot, i don't remember what it was or what he had. i then took my other girl in to get checked out, they are quarantined from eachother and i have only had her for a month more than my boy. she's an april 03 CB and hatched girl that i got from a breeder at the lee watson reptile swat. well when i took her in she was fine over all, but at the same paracites as the boy, but that was it that she had, so she was treated for those about 2and a half weeks after the boy was. well yesterday i took in the boys poop for a recheck, three weeks after the girls poop was taken in, to make sure that he was clear of any problems. well i get a call today about the fact that he has coxxyc or something like that, and he needs to get a med for once a day for 2 weeks. i'm waiting for a return call from my vet to get more details.

my questions boil down to this, is it weird that this sickness wasn't picked up in the first poop? i'm feeling sort of jerked around here, i trust my vet as he is great with reptiles, i'm just really frustrated right now. another question is should i just treat my other snake right away for the same thing even though i haven't had her tested again. the first time their poops went in they both had the same paracites. now the boy has this stuff, and i'm just really confused why it wasn't picked up the first time. and if it was contracted since that first poop what could have caused it, was it something he ate, or some other unknown variable. i love both of my babies to death and want to do everything for them, it's just so frustrating going to the vet all the time recently.

sorry for the long rant and rave and if it's confusing, i'm just really frustrated, obviously

thanks for any help or calming you can give to me, i'm a nervous first time snake mommy
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~dana~

1.1 ball pythons (hailex and roxy)
1.0 cat (whiskers)
1.1 russian hamsters (peanut and tj)

It wouldn't surprise me that the coccidia wasn't picked up right away. When fecals are done, you are looking for things like worm eggs and oocytes of protozoa such as giardia and coccidia. Since the giardia and coccidia are single-celled parasites, they are much smaller and harder to detect. If much larger eggs were present, I could see how it would be assumed to be the cause of the problem. I wouldn't count it against your vet.

It was hard to follow what the timeline was of the illnesses was. Here's what I got. So the male was sick first, was diagnosed with internal parasites (you're not sure what) and treated, and in this time the female got sick and was diagnosed with the same thing and was also being treated? Then you brought in a second fecal for the male and he was diagnosed with coccidia? Is this correct? If the female was obtained from a breeder (and was sold as CBB), it shouldn't have had parasites. I guess it's a possibility depending on what it was fed, but it doesn't seem likely. This leads me to question either what the breeder sold (CB or WC) OR your quarantine methods. If they had the same thing, and the female got sick after, I would take a look at how you are keeping them apart. You absolutely need to wash your hands thoroughly between contact, or you may have transmitted the organism. Since it's passed through feces, I would also save the sick one's cage cleaning for last, just to be sure.

As far as treatment, if they both had the same parasites and it seems as if one contracted it from the other, it may be safe to assume that they both have coccidia also. It's up to you to weigh the price of running another fecal and possibly being able to verify that the snake does not need treatment (though you may find that it needs treatment anyway), or just assuming that it does and do the treatment. Or, I guess another option is to wait to see if the condition improves with the worming, then decide.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your little ones...

yeap you got the time line right, sorry i'm just frustrated and get going a little faster than i should sometimes i'm assuming that is what was going on with the first poop, that they missed the problem he has now. i thought i had been doing a good job of keeping everything separate, i cleaned the cages out with 5% bleach water and the bowls and things too in each off their cages, on separate days as to not crosscontaminate. i always wash my hands inbetween the two if i'm going to touch them both. but i guess anything is possible.

and i just talked to the vet, and he said about the same thing that you said already, that it could be hard to detect those organisms in the poop cause sometimes they come out at different rates and stuff. he said i should just treat both at the same time, cause i'll get enough medicine for them anyways. but a plus side he said after all of this there really isn't anything else they could have, so that makes me a little bit more happy and hopefully that comes true.

my other question is, what can i clean their hides with, they are wooden and their plastic/fabric plants too, and i don't know what is safe to use on them. is the bleach water ok as long as they are rinsed well and completely dried out before they go back into the cage?

thanks for the help, your reply helped to pacify me quite a bit until the vet called back
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~dana~

1.1 ball pythons (hailex and roxy)
1.0 cat (whiskers)
1.1 russian hamsters (peanut and tj)

I would soak the plastic and fabric materials in the bleach water, making sure they are rinsed well. For the wood pieces, you can put those in the oven at 200 degrees for an hour or two - without knowing the sizes of the pieces it's hard to tell. Sounds like you are doing everything you should. I agree with the vet that treating both snakes is probably the safest option. It might be a pain, but when you're done hopefully you'll have a couple of nice healthy snakes!

I'm asking because when I treated my BP with Albon for coccidia he stopped eating for a few weeks. From my understanding the Albon not only gets rid of the bad gut flora but also the good and Acidipholiz is supposed to replace that good gut flora. Just a thought and I was wondering if you had ever considered it. I've never heard it mentioned on this forum before. What do you think?
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Rob Talkington

No, but I've read about them and it seems to make sense. I wish the vet I work at would see reptiles (other than my snakes)...

and it was that coccidia that you said it was, i totally heard him wrong in voicemail he left me

thanks again for you help
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~dana~

1.1 ball pythons (hailex and roxy)
1.0 cat (whiskers)
1.1 russian hamsters (peanut and tj)