Exotic Animal Practise course

[strictly_scales]

Well, I've been doing the course for almost a year now, one day a month. A lot of the information has gone over my head, because I myself am not a vet, and the course is designed for practising Vet's, but I thought I would share some of the information I have learnt so far...

1) Concerning water snakes such as Natrix and Thamnophis

Thiamine deficiency is a not uncommon complaint amongst fish eating snakes in captivity when fed a diet exclusively of fish. This is due to the fact that upon defrosting a fish for the animal to feed upon, Thiaminase, the Enzyme that breaks down Thiamin, is realeased, which then acts upon Thiamine within the captive snakes. Marine fish are the worst culprit for this as they realease much larger quantities of Thiaminase. The solution is to either feed on fresh freshwater fish, which can be costly, or to gently wein the animal onto a more varied diet. This can also be seen in snakes of the Dascypeltis genus when they are fed upon infertile eggs.

2) Concerning Snake Mites

Snake mites have a rough 3 month cycle, meaning that after treatment, your collection should then be periodically treated every 2 months or so to control the population of mites. It is almost impossible, apparantly, to fully eradicate mites from a collection, so the key to controlling the little buggers is regular and continued treatment, and enforcing strict quarantine measures if necessary. Remeber also that you will generally only notice the mites upon your immuno-compromised (or ill) snakes, as a healthy snake can cope with a small burden of mites and in effect "shake them off".

3) Concerning Respiratory Tract Infections (and other diseases)

Many of the health problems seen in Reptiles stem directly from a failure in the husbandry in some way, for example, excessive handling, inadequate diet, inappropriate temperatures etc. A dehabilitated reptile will seek out the heat source in order to deliberately give itself a fever, increasing core body temperature and therefore increasing the efficiency of the immune system. How does this translate into a beneficial trick for caring for the captive snake? Simple. If you have an illness diagnosed, increase the temperature of the enclosure by 2-3 degrees Celsius to give the snake a hand.

I can't think of anymore for the moment, as my brain is a little fried, but if I come up with more, I will expand/ write a sequel.

[bladeblaster]

thought the life cycle of mites was 3 weeks, not 3 months?

[strictly_scales]

The life cycle may be 3 weeks, but population cycles work roughly every 3 months, apparantly. In that a Population will go from very few mites to a few million in 3 months.

[bladeblaster]

ok, but then if the life cycle of each individual mite is 3 weeks, then after say 4 weeks they should all be dead?

I have never had to retreat.

[strictly_scales]

Well, the mites themselves are parthenogenetic, so 1 mite can repopulate. And as I mentioned, you see them on the immuno-comprimised snakes as they are a soft target. This is information that I heard today, thought was interesting, and thought I would reiterate, thats all.