Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thank you everyone for sending me all those e-mails! I DO appreciate it!
Back home in NC., everything is getting better. What probably happened is, that when I went to gray-band land (West Texas) for a whole week, I left the water dishes in the cages. Well as soon as I left, the temps were a little low in the house and the Kingsnakes started to soak in their water bowls for days on end! This created the perfect opportunity that the bacteria had been waiting for!!! A soaked snake "smorgasboard"! I came back from my one week vacation and disaster!!!
GOOD NEWS:
Havn't made it to the vet yet, and havn't even used drugs yet, but three out of the four kingsnakes are recovering exteremely well! And they have started to eat again!!! Here's what I have done:
1. Isolate all the affected snakes in a seperate room to protect the rest of my collection!
2. Raise temps to about 88 degrees during the day and about 78 at night.
3. Only offer them water once every two days under my close supervisison. If they didn't drink (after showing them their water) I would leave the bowl in there for about 2-3 hours, constantly checking it ensure that no snakes were "soaking".
4. I cleaned their neck/head affected areas with germ killer once a day.

Unfortunately the fourth snake (a four foot female goini) is still fighting and it's a rough time for her. There is not much improvement yet, but the blisters are waning. She will visit the vet (took a while to find one that treats reptiles) on Friday and hopefully get some good medicine! Lesson learned:
If going on a short vacation, removing water bowls for a week is much better than leaving them in there! After all, most snakes can EASILY go without water for longer than a week!
Once again, thanks for all the e-mails and all the great suggestions, guys & gals!

THE MORE INFO WE SHARE THE BETTER FOR EVERYONES REPTILES,
EVEN IF YOU'RE A SEASONED BREEDER, swallow your pride share the BAD news too. Too many of us are only sharing good news on here. Don't be afraid to come out and share the bad stuff too. We can ALL LEARN FROM THIS!!! NO shame - NO gain!!!

I'm an expert on everything, but know so little and have so much to learn! - Carsten Zoldy -

Carsten "Zee" Zoldy

Thats great news Zee ! One other thing you could do when going on vacation is place smaller water bowls in the tank they cant get in. Maybe even put a dab of silicone on the bottom to keep the water bowls from getting tipped.

Keith

>>Thank you everyone for sending me all those e-mails! I DO appreciate it!
>>Back home in NC., everything is getting better. What probably happened is, that when I went to gray-band land (West Texas) for a whole week, I left the water dishes in the cages. Well as soon as I left, the temps were a little low in the house and the Kingsnakes started to soak in their water bowls for days on end! This created the perfect opportunity that the bacteria had been waiting for!!! A soaked snake "smorgasboard"! I came back from my one week vacation and disaster!!!
>>GOOD NEWS:
>>Havn't made it to the vet yet, and havn't even used drugs yet, but three out of the four kingsnakes are recovering exteremely well! And they have started to eat again!!! Here's what I have done:
>>1. Isolate all the affected snakes in a seperate room to protect the rest of my collection!
>>2. Raise temps to about 88 degrees during the day and about 78 at night.
>>3. Only offer them water once every two days under my close supervisison. If they didn't drink (after showing them their water) I would leave the bowl in there for about 2-3 hours, constantly checking it ensure that no snakes were "soaking".
>>4. I cleaned their neck/head affected areas with germ killer once a day.
>>
>>Unfortunately the fourth snake (a four foot female goini) is still fighting and it's a rough time for her. There is not much improvement yet, but the blisters are waning. She will visit the vet (took a while to find one that treats reptiles) on Friday and hopefully get some good medicine! Lesson learned:
>>If going on a short vacation, removing water bowls for a week is much better than leaving them in there! After all, most snakes can EASILY go without water for longer than a week!
>>Once again, thanks for all the e-mails and all the great suggestions, guys & gals!
>>
>>THE MORE INFO WE SHARE THE BETTER FOR EVERYONES REPTILES,
>>EVEN IF YOU'RE A SEASONED BREEDER, swallow your pride share the BAD news too. Too many of us are only sharing good news on here. Don't be afraid to come out and share the bad stuff too. We can ALL LEARN FROM THIS!!! NO shame - NO gain!!!
>>
>>I'm an expert on everything, but know so little and have so much to learn! - Carsten Zoldy -
>>
>>Carsten "Zee" Zoldy
-----

Good idea Keith!!! Think I might try that next year when I go on my next one week trip! Smaller bowls definetely discourages scuba-diving kingsnakes!!!

Zee

Great to hear that, Zee! Post some g.b. pics when you get time! Am sending rocks, lechuguilla, some w. Texas "dirt", and some yummies to scent with. e-mail me.
Todd Hughes

Whyb can't I e-mail you??? Tried three times and every time I get a delivery failure notice??? It works when I e-mail others though? Something wrong in Corpus Christie?
AND THANKS FOR SENDING ME A LITTLE PIECE OF TEJ'AS!!!

Zee

I know most here use a tight temperature regime. You know, 83.27684 F for this species, but that species is different its, 79.999979999F, etc. Of course I am exzagerating, but you understand.

What these folks are doing is balancing a very unhappy medium. Of course it works as long as nothing slips. But thats is not the design for snakes/reptiles.

A snakes advantage in competeing in nature is, its a reptile. That is, its not a mammal, mammals have a consistant body temp, which means they comsume energy at a consistant rate. Reptiles do not do so, they use a varity of body temps to accomplish different tasks. This is their competitive edge with competing with mammals. As in, their superior design.

With that in mind, I find it odd that you elevate the temps to cure your snakes. I have to ask why?? What would that accomplish?

If elevating helps cure these sick snakes, I wonder, also i do not have to be a snake guy to wonder this, anybody with common sense should wonder this, Why don't you allow them to do that all the time? then you would not have to worry about leaving and having those problems, they would have cured themselves, or better yet, never got that to start with.

Surely you understand, this is not just for you or about you, its about this whole range of temps thing as opposed to a very narrow set of temps.

Years ago, I had a similar discussion, actually a war, with a well known racist, whoops person, he wrote a book on keeping and breeding pythons. Well, he was giving a talk and I was in attendance, he was explaining how you could cure Respitory desease with ammicakin piggy backed with baytril. I raised my hand and said, sir, all you have to do is allow them warmer temps and they will cure themselves, he said, I know, but I can inject them with this toooooooooooo.

So its kinda understood that when reptiles get sick, you can elevate their temps to cure them. So it appears the immune system is working at its best at higher temps. So I ask, why not allow them to have full on functioning immune system at all times, then you can go snake hunting in peace. You see it goes back to that different tasks at different temps thing. Their design is to use different temps, not get stuck in a unhappy medium. I know, many of you proved you can do it, but who is that about, you or the snakes. So what, you can do it. But its not their design. All I can think of again is, this does prove humans are superior over snakes cause we can force them to do what we want.

By the way, hunting west texas caused me to nest my snakes much better, as you know, Blairs and alternas cross roads at the snake time our captives lay eggs, dang I hate those kind of problems. So what did I do, I build big nesting cages the snakes could live in and nest, the nesting area had to be deep enough to not get disturbed while I was away and if snakes were moving, no telling how long that would be. hahahahahaha. I miss playing on 118 and 163 and mayfield ranch rd. and the loop, and christmas mts, and the teepees, and and and and next year I going for sure. hahahahahahahaha thanks FR

This makes sense to me, and segues with your often advised "give them choices" advice. Curiously, blister disease may be evident even in wild populations, where one would think the reptiles could regulate themselves... but of course all creatures are plagued with diseases and many live in less than ideal habitats, but manage to recruit themselves. Thanks for your comment Frank, I am learning a lot here. Gratefully, Vic (FR-give my regards to Dave May if you cross paths, I would love to get in touch with him again)

Hi, The real difference is, the snakes do whatever they can to exsist in nature, of course there are many places that are not suitable. Which means, there are many places that are marginally suitable. These areas may be seasonal or temporary. Like conditions that cause blisters in nature. But in nature, they can choose to find a more suitable condition or die.

In captivity, they cannot make that choice, we do the choosing.

I have not heard from Dave May in years, we sure had lots of fun. I do seen his old friend John Carreon fairly often. Thanks FR

"If elevating helps cure these sick snakes, I wonder, also i do not have to be a snake guy to wonder this, anybody with common sense should wonder this, Why don't you allow them to do that all the time?"

Of course you have a point, BUT and I mean BUT!!! Did you read the part where I said temps were a little too low in the house while I was gone???? The temps were fine during the day and night WHILE I WAS HOME - . . . .! This is old news. What isn't old news is when someone (kids) inadvertently bumps the AC control and lowers the temps in the house for a whole week...
Of course, now I must control the juvenile humans from doing this again in the future by placing some kind of safety device in the house. . .
But anyway. . . You made some good points for everyone and thanks for posting!

Zee

Remember I said it was not necessarily about you. Its more conceptual.

If your cages had hot spots, the lower abients may not have been a problem.

The real point is the same. Higher temps are often used to cure aliments in reptiles, then why are they always included?

Also, why do people accept a medium temp as good? The answer is simple to me, I hope.

In a very simple way, its more about people having power over their charges and telling them what they need as opposed to asking them what they need.

Or the dark side, they refine it down to the least amount of flucuation so they can use little tiny shoeboxes. Either case is not so good.

I can see snake factories using small cages to produce lots of numbers. But for keepers who enjoy their animals, I would think there would be more options. Please understand, I have nothing against factories, snakes or otherwise. But are all of us here a snake factory? Sorry for the 2 cents, just something to think about FR

Yes, very good points, Frank! I always provide my snakes with as much space as I can possibly give them. . .
BTW: who has the cheapest UTH these days (thinking about getting some, so I won't have to mess with the house temps two times a day, (getting tired of that after many years) LOL!)
Thanks for the great posts man! Hope to meet you next year in W. Texas (around May/June) in gray-band land!

Zee