Reptile & Amphibian Forums

OK, she gets egg bound...We beat ourselves to death trying to figure out what to do last spring, so here's what I did...Please comment...

After several more days of not being able to pass the obstructing eggs, I decided it was time to do something...Since I was obviously going to have to instrument/stress her, I gave her 5mg/kg IM of Baytril and waited about an hour then, much to my suprise I was able to easliy express the first bad egg manually...Second one was not going to come down no matter what I did it seemed...After a few minutes of constant gentle pressure, I was able to get it far enough down to feel the egg within the birth track with blunt forceps..It was only 1.5 cm up...I used the blunt forceps and opened the egg and out came the expected worthless contents...She seemed fine...2 days later another egg appeared! I did not expect this, maybe cause she was in good shape and not thin, but since we were now a week post first egg I decided not to wait...I repeated the steps above and again used the forceps to punctue the egg...Whole process took maybe 2 minutes maximim...
I don't know if what I did was right, but the other alternative was a blind needle aspiration of the offending eggs, so I didn't feel this was any worse...At least I could feel what I was puncturing...
Comments?
I have come to believe that the cause of death, by the way, in dystocia, is kidney failure...Last year my girl that died was at my vets house for almost a month...He did the usual vet stuff, but made no attempt to extract or manually unblock things...Anybody else have another take? I think the birth canal obstruction simply blocks the ureters and no urea can pass eventually leading to kidney failure from the obstruction..

Of the 2 eggs she did lay only 1 appears viable now unfortunately..

Another girl has done something I've not seen...She laid 1 egg and THEN went into her prelay shed!! This is a 7' big girl and is not bringing any other eggs down, but she abviously has them...I'll keep everybody updated an this occurence...

And you young guys wonder why Indies are so expensive!!!!
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Carl W Gossett
Garage Door Herps
Monument,Colorado...northern territory of the Great Republic of Texas

I don't know what you could have done better. Are these fairly old snakes? Have they had uneventful clutches in the past? I don't know why it would, but could your elevation in Colorado as opposed to the Southeast be a factor?

Dryguy,

Blockage and back up of urinates could very place the animal in renal failure.
I remember the loss of your girl last year. By your post here I see your not waiting on a replay of that event.

Did you use the same male this year to breed this female? Not that this may be a factor. Just wondering.

Have you had trouble with her before?

Did the female pass urinates/feces after extraction? Was there any blood observed?

The substance in the bad eggs, can this be examined or checked at the hospital for content? Unusual high concentrations of substances? What is and why?

Could scar tissue in the canal be a factor in egg binding?

Dann…

Steve, Don't see how elevation itself could be a problem, but our extremely dry climate has always been an issue for their care here..?Barometric pressure? Worth a thought..

Dann, This was a first time girl, so difficulties were not that unexpected...Really just wanted to "Show & Tell" and get responses from you guys..She did pass the remains of the first egg that I punctured..Haven't seen the second yet...There was no sign of excretions of any type while she had the eggs blocking her...Since this was a first timer, no scar tissue..Now the question will be does this episode do any long term damage? Couldn't tell you which male it was...I use 2-3 males on each girl(the sl**^ts)
I'll keep everybody up to date over the next couple of weeks...
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Carl W Gossett
Garage Door Herps
Monument,Colorado...northern territory of the Great Republic of Texas