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I have a collection of about 40 snakes and 20 lizards. Last week two of my snakes from the same species died within a period of two days. I took a saliva sample from a different snake because it was very close to their cage and these are the results: Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. What I want to know is your opinion about the situation, should I start injecting all of the animals or only the ones that are showing any signs of sickness or obnormal behavior?
p.s. I didn't take samples from the dead snakes because I didn't have the proper tools to take a sample.
Thank you for your help. Yonatan

I experienced something like this in the late 80's. I would advise you to IMMEDIATELY seperate any snakes that appear well from those that show any signs of illness. By this I mean move the well snakes to a completely different room of your house or facility. I made the mistake of not taking this precaution in 1988 and lost my entire colony over the course of 2 years. And I had mobile vats, and tons of every antibiotic. None of them worked. I don't think a lot was generally known then about reptile ailments, but my mobile vet/s were supposed to be vets that "specialized in reptiles". No dice. Had I seperated my colony into well and not well groups I may have certainly prevented a lot of deaths and may have saved my livelyhood.

To your other question,... No, I would not suggest treating all the snakes. Medications can be very hard on reptiles. I would not ever advise anyone to use them unless it appears there is no other means to save the snake. You didn't say what species your snakes are,. but if they are tropical species I would say that the best thing you can do for them is to up their overall humidity to 80% to 90% AT ALL TIMES, and their temperatures to 88 to 90 degrees, again, at all times! This should help the sick to battle their infection and help the well to have a strong resistance to catching it. So save yourself a LOT of cash on unnecessary vet bills and go to Wal-Mart and buy a cool mist humidifier, a digital humidity indicator, and a oil-type electric space heater. All these things will only cost you about 90 dollars but will enable you to take your entire snake room up in temp and humidity to levels that will truly benefit your snakes. If you seperate your colony into two groups then do this for both groups. 180 total. It's a LOT less than just a vet visit, a culture and 2 bottles of Baytril would run you.

Another very important thing: Assume that every tool, every surface, every water bowl, cage, snake, EVERYTHING, has these cold viruses on them. Wash everything you can in a hot 10% bleach solution (not the snakes of course), and even after that never allow any snakes to share ANYTHING. And wash your hands between everything you do from one snake to another. I know it sounds like a pain in the @ss, and it undoubtedly is, but it is damn good practice whether one has sick snakes or not. It can and will save lives. And lastly, if you have more than two snakes to a cage, get more cages until every snake has its own cage. If your budget doesn't allow for this email me and I will shoot off some cage designs for you where you can build top notch cages for dirt cheap. Like 6 good size cages for under 150 bucks.

I hope this helps. I rushed it so as to get the info to you ASAP so my grammer and writing skills may be lacking. But it's the snakes that are most important here. Post any other questions and I will immediately answer them if I can. Hopefully Rob Carmichael will duck in today and shed some insight on this from his years of experience too.

>>I have a collection of about 40 snakes and 20 lizards. Last week two of my snakes from the same species died within a period of two days. I took a saliva sample from a different snake because it was very close to their cage and these are the results: Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. What I want to know is your opinion about the situation, should I start injecting all of the animals or only the ones that are showing any signs of sickness or obnormal behavior?
>>p.s. I didn't take samples from the dead snakes because I didn't have the proper tools to take a sample.
>>Thank you for your help. Yonatan
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It isn't "Ideas" that fail or succeed,... it is the "Systems" which are instilled to launch and sustain the idea that either fail or succeed.>[Me.]

My condolences to you on the loss of your snakes. I cannot offer advice as I have never heard of either. Do you have any idea how they entered your colony?
I am shocked and sad to hear of your loss Brian. I know a few people who suffered tremendous losses to a Burmese bug that mimicked RI in the 80's could this have been it?
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Marcia Pimentel
Tango River Reptiles
GiantFeeders

Yes, this is exactly what it was. I think some called/call it "burmese disease". I called it "snake aids" because once they got it it was just a matter of time before they died. My colony was deliberately sabatoged by a large reptile breeder/competitor via one adult female burmese that was infected but not showing signs. Paybacks are cool though, you know. And his days are numbered. This may sound bad, but I never forget when someone does something horible to me, and all wrongs must be set right eventually.

>>I am shocked and sad to hear of your loss Brian. I know a few people who suffered tremendous losses to a Burmese bug that mimicked RI in the 80's could this have been it?
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>>Marcia Pimentel
>>Tango River Reptiles
>>GiantFeeders
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It isn't "Ideas" that fail or succeed,... it is the "Systems" which are instilled to launch and sustain the idea that either fail or succeed.>[Me.]

That is unreal. Someone deliberately sabotaging your animals, what a cruel person. No matter what someone did to me I would never take it out on his or her animals. I believe what comes around goes around. I've seen it first hand. Karma is the mighty balance. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Knowing how bonded you are to your animals I can imagine it was living through an inferno.
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Marcia Pimentel
Tango River Reptiles
GiantFeeders

Yes, it was devastating in every imaginable way. After a couple years and numerous deaths I just became despondant. And I hadn't done anything to the guy other than to inadvertantly be competition for his own reptile pet shop business by selling my offspring for much less. And yes, I too believe in a form of karma. Though not the traditional "universal, cosmic balance" type. More of the karma that we make happen for all the right reasons.

>>That is unreal. Someone deliberately sabotaging your animals, what a cruel person. No matter what someone did to me I would never take it out on his or her animals. I believe what comes around goes around. I've seen it first hand. Karma is the mighty balance. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Knowing how bonded you are to your animals I can imagine it was living through an inferno.
>>-----
>>Marcia Pimentel
>>Tango River Reptiles
>>GiantFeeders
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It isn't "Ideas" that fail or succeed,... it is the "Systems" which are instilled to launch and sustain the idea that either fail or succeed.>[Me.]