my experience with egg binding

I thought you might be interested in my experience this year with a snake becoming egg bound. My 2001 Amel laid 10 good eggs and 1 slug, but then could not pass the last egg. This was a huge egg, and it made her skin stretch as tight as a drum. No wonder it would not pass.

So I went to a TSC store (tractor supply company) and purchased a 20 cc hypodermic syringe and a 16 gauge needle. This is a size used for horses since it is so thick. I held the snake and my wife (brave woman that she is) stuck the needle into the side of the snake about halfway through and sucked 10 cc of matter out of the egg.

The snake remained healthy, and passed the collapsed egg in about 2 weeks. She is eating great and has no visible signs of anything ever happening. We await the eggs hatching in a couple more weeks.

In case anyone is in this situation and is contemplating taking their snake to a vet, a word of caution. I believe that a vet would cut the snake open to remove the egg. Afterword the snake could never breed again. And the snake would have a good chance of dying. In my opinion it is not that difficult to use the syringe method to take care of the snake. You do have to be careful that you stick it only once, and then quickly remove the egg matter so that you don't get any egg matter in the ovaduct (this could cause infection).

Mark

my $0.02

I had a snow become egg-bound several years ago. I did take her to the vet and they first tried to palpate the egg out gently, then gave her hormones, and finally used a syringe as you did, which worked like a charm. I don't believe any vet would attempt to cut the egg out first, and as a final resort after all of the other things we had tried, I would certainly rather them cut her open and take the egg than have her die from egg-binding. If I had this happen again I'd probably try the syringe method myself first, however I'd recommend that people who haven't had experience with this type of thing take their animal to a qualified vet first.

As a side note since this incident the same female has laid 2 clutches of 15+ eggs with no complications.

"Dystocia" aka Egg-Binding / Fetal-Retention

Link is to short article regarding Diagnosis and treatment...

" The biggest factors determining female post-retention survival is her overall physical state.
Most are severely weakened as the result of the dystocia.
Those who started out healthy, in good nutritional, hydration and physical states are more likely to recover."
http://www.icomm.ca/dragon/dystocia.htm

Well, this isn't the same species but I had two Cal Kings become egg bound this year (they weren't properly sexed...) and my wife and I successfully used the old needle method to drain some of the bigger eggs too. Some we were able to push out. Both girls are doing fine now. I won't recommend that just anyone tries this with their egg bound snakes though. There are risks envolved if you make a mistake.

Just out of curiousity

I've never bred any of my corns, nor would I probably ever attempt this without seeing it done first, but is their any kind of techinque to this method?

Do you have to insert the needle in any specific spot around the egg? Is there any post-care needed for the puncture area? Is it ok for the egg to stay in the snake that long after being "operated" on? Does your female hate you afterwards ?

Here we go

Here is a link to a picture and explanation on Kathy Love's website. She is "corn sucking," as she calls it. It actually shows her pulling out the egg contents, and gives some pretty clear directions on what she does before, during and afterwards.

http://www.cornutopia.com/Corn Utop... aspirating egg yolk by syringe - CAPTION.jpg

This procedure has been very succesfull for me. The only advice I can offer is -make sure your needle is sterile, make sure and swab the wound with alcohol(infection is definetly the enemy).

As to Kathy's "corn sucking" Don't try this alone! Get some help holding the snake. I had one throw her head and almost impale herself on the needle.

AggieTiff,

Thanks for the link. There is always something to learn around here!

size

i always imagined that a female corn would look bigger than that b4 u would breed it...(just based on what i see in the pic link)

So did I

I was really surprised to see how small the snake was that she was holding. It would really make me paranoid when trying to determine how far in the needle should go on a snake that size.

16 gauge needle?

Is a 16 gauge needle standard issue for this type of procedure?
Is the "18" or "20" too narrow of a guage for this procedure to work smoothly?

And for searchable reference sake...

"Aspiration

A common treatment for dystocia involves inserting a needle into the egg and aspirating the contents.

The result is a far smaller egg which may be more easily passed through the oviduct and cloaca; oxytocin may be used to start contractions if they do not start on their own within a few hours or even a couple of days.

Caution must be taken to not allow any of the egg contents to escape into the coelomic cavity.

Aspiration must be done within the 48 hour period after cessation of natural laying attempts.

After than short time, the contents of the eggs themselves begin to harden, making aspiration impossible.

If the eggs are not expelled within 48 hours of aspiration, they must be surgically removed."

http://www.icomm.ca/dragon/dystocia.htm

I'm not in any way trying to pretend that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this procedure ; I'm as new to this thing as the next person.

However, I have worked for an equine vet for awhile, and the standard guage needle used on horses is a 20 guage. This is for things like drawing blood and giving shots. Most vets would use a 16 guage on an animal such as cattle, however, every vet is different.

If a 20 guage is ok for that, I would think that it, or maybe even a 18, would work as well for this procedure. But another thing to look at would probably be the overall size of the snake, as well as how big of an area is present between the scales, where you'd be inserting the needle.

Just my .02 ...either way, I'd probably take my snake to someone who has done it before .

Cowboyway, interesting that the information on the link you provided said that the egg should be surgically removed if not passed within 48 hours. As I said earlier, it took about 2 weeks for my snake to pass the egg, with no apparent ill effects. So I would tend to ignore that advise. I have talked to other breeders who have had this take a lot longer than 48 hours, also with no harm to the snake.

Apparently the cornsnakes sometimes take until the next shed to pass the egg. With the 16 gauge needle, the contents of the egg came out easily. This needle looked huge to me, and I felt rather uncomfortable sticking the snake with it, but after the procedure was done, there was not even a mark visible on the skin. To me the advantage of the larger needle is that you can quickly remove the contents of the egg and minimize the danger of the snake whipping around and becoming impaled or the novice person behind the syringe becoming impaled.

Mark,
I quite agree with you. I tried a smaller syringe on my first attemp. It only made the procedure more frustrating, and was not very succesfull.