Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I need some help with this. I have never had to do this until now. My vet has instucted me to use dry cat food that has been made into a paste and use a syringe. I attempted this last night but I believe that I need a tube to use it with sucess. I was able to move some of it own but alot just came out her mouth. I am afraid of blocking the glottis with this method. She is also very dehydrated and I have read to use diluted children's pedia-lite. I would greatly like to hear and get some positive feedback to how some of you have performed this procedure and to rectify the deydration. The vet has also informed me that she may have phenumonia or the very least a upper respitory infection. I have a male housed in the same large enclosure and there is no signs of any problems with him. Any help from my fellow herpers is greatly needed and appreciated.

Please give us some additional background information on this snake as it would help us to understand the situation. Caging setup, size of snake, reason that it is believed to be dehydrated, why vet thinks it needs force fed, symptoms of suspected RI, etc. Sorry for all the questions, but it will help us to answer your questions.

Kelly

First as to her dehydration. Her skin is sagging badly and she has no muscle tone. No muscle tone is to the reason she needs to be force fed. Her basking spot is 90 degrees the ambient temp. is 80 degrees. The humidity is at 50-60% at all times. She is approx. 4-5 feet in length. I run a humidifier all year around the clock. She is in a 40gallon breeder tank until she is able to return to her cage. She was eating a medium sized rat every two weeks. Her substrate is now newspaper. It is normally coconut bark and moss in her hide box. Her normal enclosure is 6ft long by 3ft high by 4ft deep. She will eventually go into a 8ftx4ftx4ft. I hope that I was able to answer your questions.

Forgot to add the respitory. Her breathing is very erratic and raspy. She does not gape her mouth open to breath but when help you can hear it. Hope this helps..

Also did anything change, no matter how small, when symptoms started or before. The more info the better. You started your reply by saying "as far as dehydration...." but then said the folds of skin were from not eating but you never said how the dehydration assumption came about. I hope you don't do anything, vet advised or not, before you hear some advise from here.
Does your conda soak in a water tub or not? The one thing to keep in mind is if you had a healthy conda, and now you don't, something has changed. Finding out what is key. Provide the most amount of info you can. No matter how small.
Also, what is your experience with reptiles? What have you kept sucessfully before? Just so we know how to form an answer for you.
DONT FORCE FEED YOUR CONDA YET!!!!!!! give this forum a little time to help. Force feeding a day or two later isn't gonna matter because if your snake is one or two days away from death then force feeding probably wont help anyways. You laid some foundation info but now we need some details about when it started not feeding and what the snake experienced prior to that.
Also as far as what you've already mentioned it seems like the humdity has been lost. Coconut shells and a peat moss hide box would be a lot better at retaining humidity. i would strive for at least a 70% humidity level. I dont think this is your problem entirely though. It will stress the animal and condas under stress don't like to feed. Newspapers are a good substrate but get the humidity back in somehow.
One last thing, where did you get your conda?

Hope to help,
Arik

When did she eat last?

Arik

I believe that the dehydration is from her not having any water which is what I do not understand. Her Male cage mate is fine. I did have a fecal sample done. As I thought that she had internal parasites. It came back negative. I have always found her in her water dish. I got her from Extreme Reptiles months ago. I got the male several months ago from a shop in Nashua NH. I have 10 snakes and a gecko.I have (3) 7ft scrub pythons (1) 4ft jungle carpet python (1) 4 1/2ft white lipped python (1) 5ft Albino burmese python (1) 7ft common boa constrictor (1) 5ft 50/50 banded kingsnake (2) 5-6 green anaconda's. I had a macklot's python but a friend who watched them for me while I was away left the cage open slightly and it is gone. Most I have had for a minimum of 1 1/2 years some much longer. No problems whith the others.

i have had snakes like this before. what u might want to do is put her in a large tub with warm water for day or two. also keep her warm at all times from now till she breaks her cold. also the cocunut sheding i would take that out and replace it with newspaper or repti-carpet. the cocunut sheding tends to get mold on it and that can make them sick as well.

CrazyCody

I believe he did take the coconut out and is using newspaper.
So from your newest post the dehydration assumption is just from you or is it something the vet told you ?
Also I would not expect the snake to feed on it's own for awhile after the force feeding attempt that you made earlier. Very stressful. That'll give you some time to gather some info from here. Until then leave the snake completely alone and try to cover most of the tank so it cannot see people walking about. Leave it that way (change the water of course) until you get some more posts from here. That is going to be critical to getting it back on feed. It has to be comfortable before you will have any luck.
Arik

Her male cage mate? that could be a problem, probably not, but unless breeding they both shouldnt be in the same cage

please do not force feed yet...I have had a lot of vets tell me the same methods and I think they all learned them in some sort of strange vet school for non snake experts. often times a vet will recomend that too soon. (just curious..there do you live). if it stopped eating I bet it is a problem you can fix with help from this forum if there is no severe diseases or parasites.

She is now in a seperate cage. She is in New Hampshire. I have placed some plastic over part of the top of the tank to increase the humidity level. I wanted to say thanks to everyone that has taken the time to read and reply to this posting. Everyone one here has a great deal to offer with there experience with these wonderful animals. Keep up the good work.

As long as health and environment of the snake are checked and ruled out as issues, voluntary feeding will follow. As Arik pointed at earlier, the stress of force feeding can keep greens from feeding on their own for very long periods of time, possibly permanently. I would personally never force feed an anaconda for any reason, basically because unacclimated snakes can go months before they are interested in feeding on their own with no adverse effects, and because if they do fail to feed for such a long period that they become debilitated, there is most likely a health or environmental issue that is being overlooked that won't be solved by force feeding. I have worked with a fair number of greens, and have never seen a physically and environmentally healthy one starve itself to the point that it's health was in jeopardy. The healthy ones will all eat eventually, you just need patience. Even healthy individuals will occasionally go through short periods where they refuse to feed. When considering the maintenance of different boids in captivity, no other requires the patience that anacondas do. Keep us posted.

Kelly