Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am afraid I have an adult female with a respiratory problem. She weezes a little bit and has refused food the past few time I have offered it (last 2 weeks). I am not a vet, but I don't think it is severe...I had some condensation in the cage because she moved her water bowl directly over the heat. What should I do? I am in a bit of a finacial pickle at the moment so a vet bill is out of the question, at least for a couple of weeks. Is there an over the counter remedy that I can try? Any help would be appreciated.

Maybe it's too cold...the basking spot should be around 90-110 degree. What is the temp. at the basking spot. They will get sick if it's too cold and too hot, but this sounds like your snake is cold, though. do you turn on the AC?

No...the cage has a temperature gradient. Plenty warm and cooler area to move into. She may have a cold however. It was very hot a few weeks ago here and we did have the AC running. The air temp may have been too cold?? Wonder if she needs anti-biotics.

She probably does. I've seen vet administer it to the snake. I don't think it cost that much to treat this, though. I would quarantine it if you have other snakes and take it to the vet to see whether if this is a contatious disease, or not, that will spread to your other snake collections.

I would wash my hand throughly after picking this snake before picking up another.

Try looking at this site, ok.
Link

np

....I didn't have the time to read the other responses but in a nutshell: No there is not any OTC remedies. You can try what's called "thermotherapy" by elevating the temp at the warm end of the cage to about 95F and cool end about 87F. This may nip the infection in the bud. Keep the humidity in the lower end of the range, ie 50% or so. If begun EARLY enough this technique works well. Otherwise it's injectable antibiotics such as Ceftazidime w/ or w/o amikacin, a course of treatment that'll run at least $50. Good luck! SCott J. Michaels DVM

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