..."I had a miserable time at the vet today: the assistant didn't know how to handle me so I got really nervous and snapped at anything I could get my teeth into. Unfortunately that was my own back! TWICE
(ouch)
Blackjack and ChondroDoc tried to unhook me as gently as possible, but I still managed to pull one of my favourite fangs out of the top of my mouth. Then the awful vet lady put some antiseptic where my tooth was and also made me swallow icky fluids to get rid of the potentially dangerous worms in my gut/lungs.
Now I'm back home in my freshly sterilized terrarium with just some paper towel as substrate and my hideboxes and water bowl. I'm not happy -- AT ALL!
... Here's a nice pic of my fang next to a penny, so you can see how sorry I was to lose it.
Cool pic, huh?
Yours,
Crais."
And he thinks HE'S had a bad day!
He didn't see the bill!
Yes, our new beautiful stud Brazilian Rainbow Boa is not well. He regurged his last two meals.. the first I thought was my fault: rat too big and too soon after bringing him home: the second time I started to really worry. The only other snake I owned that regurged was my Brazilian Rainbow Boa Q and that didn't end well...
Crais finally defecated so I could send his stool in to the lab yesterday. They phoned today. He has an as yet not completely identified nematode infestation. It seems to be a form of strongyloides -- a type of worm that settles in the lungs and can cause serious health problems. So far he's still in really good shape: (no weight loss , no pneumonia) but the lab thought we should start treating IMMEDIATELY, thus the unplanned visit to the vet today.
She gave him Panacur and we'll have to repeat the treatment once a day for the next 3 days. Then probably have to do it again in a few weeks. The fun part of that: he still has over 100 teeth in his head and seems to be in a mood to risk them all! Oh this should be fun
Hopefully he'll be OK after the treatments. I'm not sure if the regurgitation is related to the parasites or not. He just ate a small rat last Sunday and I was hoping not to stress him out for the next two weeks or so... THAT plan obviously didn't work out. I really hope he doesn't regurge again!
It's been 5 hours since we brought him back from the vet and he's STILL cruising all over his terrarium. I'm not sure if he's "just" in pain from losing his tooth or from his own bite wounds, or if he's so terribly stressed or if it's a side-effect of the meds or all of the above.
But it's starting to worry me. I've never seen ANY snake this active EVER! I've covered the glass doors of his tank with cardboard in the hopes of calming him down a bit. Hopefully he'll settle down sometime soon. But with the loud thumps I keep hearing in there, he's obviously still climbing the walls -- literally. Poor thing.
Keep him in your thoughts. He's a beautiful boy and I really don't want anything to happen to him. I really don't want him to end up like poor Q!
I already posted this pic in another thread, but thought I'd remind you which one of my beasties this thread is referring to:
Thanks!!
Have you ever been bitten by him or one of your other larger snakes, if so, did it hurt much?
