Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a pair of adult ETB's that I have owned for about a year now. I purchased them from a guy up north that didn't know a whole lot about owning snakes. They were very underweight and had skin problems.

I bought these snakes housed together in a 90 gallon aquarium. I kept them outside for nearly the whole summer (I live in florida) with supplemental heat on one side of the tank and a screen top all the way accross. The humidity stayed over 80% pretty much the whole time I had them outside.

I didn't like keeping them in the 90 gallon tank because its long and not tall but they had to stay untill I built them new cages. I got their weight back up over time and took them to a vet wich gave me a solution to soak them in for their skin.

Then the female began cracking her mouth open during the day. Over time it was more and more. I did some research and suspected mouth rot. The male began doing this aswell. So I took them to another vet and he told me it was a resperatory infection and gave me amicacin that I had to administer with shots. This vet bill was $180!

I finally built 2 new cages for them. One for each snake. I am heating them with pro products heat and have moved them inside for the winter. The cages are 4 x 2 x 2 and have 6 perches the snake can choose from. The top branch has a DTH of around 86 degress F and the lowest branch is about 76 degrees F. The snakes hang out in the middle where the temps are 81-83 degrees F. I have been allowing the temps to drop to 77 NTL and I mist the cages and snakes twice a day. The humidity stays above 90% for a long time and slowly goes to around 70% by night.

Both snakes are showing the cracked mouth still and I can't imagine why. I feel like I am doing everything I can. I watched the female swallow a small rat the other day and the gumline right by hear back teeth looked reddish. There is no pus, extra saliva, bubbles or anything like that. Just a slightly cracked open mouth during the day, and a closed one at night (while hunting) I feel that this is a mild case of mouth rot that has been present for a long time. What can I do to correct this problem at home?

It sounds like a resp. infection again! I had a bad guy send me a basin with a resp infection last year and because it was so bad I immediately sent her back, luckily I did because she eventually succumbed to it and died. Unfortunately you do not have this option so you should see your vet again and take every step withion reason to help your animals! Even though the gum is red with no bubbles and so on, it still seems like a URI. If you can gently hold one of them behind the head and get the animal to open its mouth you may have a better idea of what is going on inside and you can let us know what you see......

Sounds like your animals have a chronic upper respiratory infection, and is most likey a secondary infection. Due to the fact that they were kept inadequately prior to your obtaining them it's hard to say what conditions they were in. I would have the vet do a complete blood runup to see if there are any other systematic infections going on.

Regardless, you will need your vet's help with this one, there's no home remedy for what your snakes probably have. Regarding vet bills, well, there's not much you can do about that. Corallus are expensive snakes to keep, and even more expensive when not kept properly.

Sounds like you'll need the help of a good broad spectrum antibiotic in the least, Baytril seems to work well in most cases but your vet will have to determine what's best after a good blood workup.

You'll also want to get your temps up to about 95 max, although most Corallus seem to prefer the low to mid 80's some ailing animals will appreciate the higher temps for stimulating their immune systems...just make sure you keep the humidity up and the air from becoming stagnant...

Good luck!
Danny

Good luck

Here is what I don't understand. Snakes breath through the hole in the floor of the front of their mouth. They don't breath in through the back of their throat. So why then would the front of the animals mouth be entirely pinkish/white and normal looking, and rear of the throat on the back teeth be reddish, if it were an URI? Breathing seems fine, its the gums that seem to have a problem.

I had the vet do a fecal on both animals and it came back negative for everything. I had to administer shots of Amikacin into the upper 1/3 of the muscle every 72 hours six times. From what I hear, this is a very powerful drug. And that didn't seem to work.

I think that raising temps that high in the enclosure is asking for trouble. The upper most branch in the enclosure gets about 90 and the snakes tend to stay away from it. I have been keeping humididy above 90% for a good part of the day and allowing it to drop to around the 60% at night. I'll take some pics of the animals, and their mouths and post them up.

Here is what I don't understand. Snakes breath through the hole in the floor of the front of their mouth. They don't breath in through the back of their throat. So why then would the front of the animals mouth be entirely pinkish/white and normal looking, and rear of the throat on the back teeth be reddish, if it were an URI? Breathing seems fine, its the gums that seem to have a problem.

Sometimes when a treeboas mouth hangs open for a long time the gums in the front will pale out. This quickly gets reversed whent he snakes force blood into the area by doing a quick "yawn & stretch". The reason for this is that there are ALOT of small capillaries and relative surface area in a Corallus' mouth/gums... As far as resp infections go, they don't always hold their mouths open to facilitate airflow. Sometimes when they get these resp infection, they get an accumulation of fluid in the mouth which causes the lips to just "hang open".

I had the vet do a fecal on both animals and it came back negative for everything.

This will do nothing to help you. Fecals are for detecting parasites, your problem is probably bacterial or viral. And I also would get another fecal runin 6 mos just for complete overkill.

I had to administer shots of Amikacin into the upper 1/3 of the muscle every 72 hours six times. From what I hear, this is a very powerful drug. And that didn't seem to work.

Amikacin is good for some things, and Baytril is good for others...if your vet specifically recommended Amikacin then I'm sure he has his reason why. But there may be something that is underlying and resistant to the Amikacin, bloodwork would best help here as I previously recommended.

I think that raising temps that high in the enclosure is asking for trouble. The upper most branch in the enclosure gets about 90 and the snakes tend to stay away from it. I have been keeping humididy above 90% for a good part of the day and allowing it to drop to around the 60% at night.

Im not telling you to raise the temperature in the enclosure, just offer a higher temp at the warm end of the spectrum which gives the snake the opportunity to decide where it's more comfy. Sometimes when they are sick they automatically head up for the hottest parts of the cages, I've recorded some animals at temps as high as 96F.

They key is to offer a broad temperature spectrum within the good sized enclosure you previously mentioned.

Good luck!
Danny

It is possible that the amikacin may not work, nor any antibiotics in the same family. The bacteria may become resistent. You may need to have the vet perscribe something else, Tylan or Fortaz might be a better choice. You must make sure they are well hydrated as some of these antibiotics are hard on the kidneys.

Hey Danny,
Isn't batryl more likely to cause localized necrosis and doesn't it burn like He!!?

CraigC

Hey Craig,

If given properly baytril leaves no marks. It should be an intramuscular injection where it would leave no mark, but if it is not given deep enough it becomes somewhat of a subcutaneous injection and will leave a black mark. From what I know the safest way to give it without worrying about scarring the animal is orally. Danny does this sound about right?

Who'd have thought you were paying attention Matt?!

I agree with Matt, as long as you penetrate the muscle you'll be fine, if the baytril collects (or pools) subdermally then you'll see the burning/necrotic effect manifest as a black mark (for life) on your snake.

D