Bacteria and Gas, anyone have a clue?

Hey everyone,

Turns out, my corn has some sort of bacterial infection in her gut and it's producing alot of gas (she doesn't seem to fart or burp though, and I know snakes fart). That was probably the reason for the soft lump that came and went. She's close to 2 ft long, and she only weighs a mere 63 grams!! but she didn't look THAT thin. I was really shocked to hear how light she was, she's probably half full of gas all the time. The bacteria seems to like cooler temps (or atleast produces more gas when the temp is cooler).

So my question is, has anyone ever come across this gas-bacteria? How would I get rid of it, since flagyl only seemed to sorta work (well it's also because I didn't get a full dose into her, will dose her again next week with a dosing needle). Because my vet is pretty clueless on what else to do, other than to send the culture to another lab or something. Also spiking the water with GSE didn't do much (seemed only to make her sicker and more reluctant to eat).

Also, would it be okay to dose flagyl once a week? or would that be overdosing? If the flagyl sorta worked, I wanna pound the bacteria really hard with the drug.

Is Pennicillin poisonous to snakes? Would it work against this kind of bacteria? (I guess I should've asked my vet, she coulda bombed the culture with pencillin).

-13mur 6

I've never heard of that before. But I do know that Penicillin kills gram postive bacteria, not gram negitive.

never never use too much peniciline!!! keep to the doctors prescription and nothing else!!!
flagiel can be used in precaution (if you want to use it that way)once a year, one dosis...and only after checking the weight of the snake and checking the weight with de vet to get the dosis right...
just never give flagyll or panacure or anything else fot that matter after checking with the vet first ok???pls??
maris

I doubt that flagyl or any other helminthe medication would clear up a bacterial infection. I've never experienced this with any of my snakes but I would recommend you go back to your vet and get them to do agar cultures and figure out something that will kill off the infection. If they have already realsied that it's a bacterial infection then they should have *some* idea on what medication to administer. Probably something for gastro?? I'm not 100%, your vet really should have recommended something
Also, overuse of any medication will result in your animals immune system becoming resistant to the effects which would be bad if your snake gets ill again in the future. I really hope your snake gets better soon, and let us know if you have any luck with your vet!

Alrighty,
I took my snake to the vet on Saturday. She had a very bad looking stool (looked watery, was a little yellow, and had indigested mouse parts in it) friday evening that was promptly put into a sterile blood collection tube. We ran a quick fecal float and smear on it and found nothing but a single mouse pinworm; no eggs, nothing moving in it, pretty much nothing. Since the snake was so tiny, my vet decided we should just do the culture on the fecal, since she didn't have any swabs small enough for the snake (like I said, ill equipped). I'm hoping whatever bacteria it is got shed in some of the stool and I don't get a false negative. My vet is still doubful and wants to take an Xray (more money for her), but last night, I looked at my snake while she was relaxing. The lump wasn't there for the entire day, and I visually saw it grow to the width of my thumb and go down again within a matter of a few minutes. I'm going to put her in a tub of water next time she gets the lump and see if it floats, that should further put flesh on my assumption.

-13mur 6

College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Florida link:

http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~iacuc/antimicrobe.htm

"The immune status of the ill reptile will also be important in selecting the most suitable antimicrobial drug.

Since many ill reptiles, especially those with chronic infections, appear to be immunocompromised, the use of bacteriocidal antibiotics is often recommended .

Further, since the immune system of reptiles is affected by body temperature, maintaining the ill reptile under optimum environmental conditions is imperative.

"Thermo-therapy"
Snakes ill with respiratory disease have been successfully treated only by maintenance at elevated environmental temperatures, without concurrent antibiotic administration
.
This has been termed thermo-therapy.