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Very concerned about my gravid female Diamond..

One thing my vet told me too, that actually worked, is that he has a theory (similar to birthing mammals, actually) that egg binding is mostly caused by a lack of calcium. That a snake needs a ridiculous amount of calcium for egg production and she also requires calcium to comfortably pass them.
He gave me a calcium supplement and after a few days of her getting the supplement, she passed them (even after the eggs had already hardened).
If you can't take her to the vet and she is still egg bound after a few days I recommend looking for a safe reptile calcium supplement, probably online, and then heading to a livestock feed store (Dels, Cenex, etc) and purchasing a large injection needle. I would mix the calcium supplement with water, reptile vitamins and/or Reptaid and inject it into her next mouse.
Watch your doses carefully.
 
Don't feel bad about not being able to afford a vet. I have lost a lit of respect for many of them. I'm old enough to remember when you could actually afford to go to a vet. I raise rats. Coughing and sneezing is not a good thing. Rats also do not live alone. They live in colonies. I call the vet, it is $65.00 plus meds for one rat. If you have 10 coughing sneezing rats, you are going to pay $650.00. The average very small rat coloney is 20 rats. That is taking them in to the vet.
 
Now the vet that actually drives to my house gives my horses their shots, pulls their blood work, gives my 4 dogs and two cats all their shots and charges me $250.00
and he drives to me.
 
Like everything else, there are good vets and bad vets. There certainly are vets who don't want to spend the time to actually figure out what's wrong with your pet but only want to make a quick buck.

OTOH though, my reptile vet is very good. VERY good. He's methods usually work. He enjoys his job so much that he focuses almost all of his energy on trying to better the health and life quality of our pets daily. He's been published, featured in a few magazines and is currently writing a book on some of his theories.

If it helps, here is my vet clinic: http://www.allcreatures24hr.com/
The vet I am talking about specifically is Dr. James Little (yeah, that's his real name ;) )
It might be worth calling him to ask some questions, if you need to.
 
I saw a suggestion about a space heater.. something I suggest is actually a radiator heater. I have one in my room and it keeps it nice and warm. You can hook it up to a thermostat of its own and set it to keep the room at 80.
 
Thanks Tara80 for the vet suggestion and the supplement/calcium suggestion as well. I have a powder form. Not that it will work since she isn't eating. I'm going to get a hold of a friend and see if she's got any syringes. She has a son with a few corn snakes and has bred them and has had difficulty with the females as well this year. She's had to aspirate a few eggs in a couple of her son's female snakes. I'll ask her if she can help me out.
 
AliCat37- I do have a room heater that works decent enough. It's small in size and I have it set for 73 degrees. I don't think I can handle my bedroom being 80 degrees. Even though I will have to deal with it soon enough since it heats up really warm during the summer in here even with my huge fan, window air unit and exaust fan to pull in cooler air it still warms up.
 
I don't want to be negative, but reading through your old threads you knew you had issues with your ambient temperatures a couple of years ago. If you want to keep your snakes healthy and breed them you really owe it to them to deal with problems.
Any owner who doesn't provide the best they can and still breeds isn't really being caring and responsible, IMO
 
Myca- I do feel horrible about not being properly prepared financially to take care of my pets. They are so very important to me and I should have been better prepared for these types of things. So once this season is over, I have another gravid female that I will have to deal with in the next month or so laying eggs. After that I will not have to deal with this anymore for a long time. Not until I am more prepared.
 
Myca said:
Don't feel bad about not being able to afford a vet. I have lost a lit of respect for many of them. I'm old enough to remember when you could actually afford to go to a vet. I raise rats. Coughing and sneezing is not a good thing. Rats also do not live alone. They live in colonies. I call the vet, it is $65.00 plus meds for one rat. If you have 10 coughing sneezing rats, you are going to pay $650.00. The average very small rat coloney is 20 rats. That is taking them in to the vet.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I have to disagree. Yes there are some things you can learn to do for yourself, but what if the pet needs surgery? NO pet owner has the right to keep pets. Those pets don't deserve to have health problems or shortened lifespans because of their owners finances.
 
diamondlil- I can take care of my animals just fine. I'm not always in a bad state financially. And as far as having heat issues 2 years ago, I was not even in the same house as I am now two years ago so I did have issues then as well for other types of reasons. Now my situation here is slightly different concerning the temps. Like I said before most of the time my temps are just fine here in this house.
 
Having raised lots of farm animals vets aren't always an option, many things have to be done by the farmer, that's OK. Rats have a life expectancy of 2-3 years and yes I like rats a lot, but paying money for a vet for a rat (sorry beth)???? Now a snake life expectancy 15-20 years, so having funds for a vet seems like a good idea. Most everyone has financial difficulty at some time. For the life me I can't understand why one would breed snakes without proper heat. The word most, for the most part, mostly doesn't seem really confident to me so mostly they eat, most of the time you have food for them, most of the time the heat isn't an issue???? Why did you breed at all it's not like a farm animal that gives you milk or meat in hard times. I just don't get it.
 
Susang- I always have food for my snakes ALWAYS! and 90% of the time my heat is fine and just where it needs to be. Like you said in your post everyone has financial difficulties at some point and time and that time for me is now. So, I don't have the funds for a vet. When I had to take one of my girls last year I had the money and it didn't do me any good I was not aware the vet didn't know anything about egg bound snakes until after I went and saw her. This is my third year breeding my snakes and I know how to incubate the eggs and keep temps right. My temps are fine now and it was only a mishap which happens a lot to a lot of people its a mistake that was made by me when I left my window air unit on and my other window exaust fan that brought in cooler air on all night when it was getting colder out as it was. I just didn't turn them off or take them out of the windows like I should have so it got pretty chilly in here. I've got everything set right now and I know what I am doing.
 
By the way- my girl Diamond pushed out some nasty looking sloppy slugs. They are so funky looking and they were smooshed and goey, and some stuck together. There was some poop in her lay box and she had moss/dirt stuck to her cloaca with poop stuck as well and it was slightly opened and caked and hardened. I've cleaned everything up and washed her off with some damp paper towels and I felt at least three more eggs way up in her still. I've given her a massage and put her back in her lay box and won't check on her again until morning.
 
A friend of mine is actually going to try and help me out. He lives in Columbus, IN and is going to try and get me an appointment with his reptile vet down there. He also said he is willing to pay for the vet visit and I can pay him back when I have the money. I hope that he can get an appointment as Diamond is not doing all that great. His vet also allows him to have a small balance due on his account which is helpful as well as he doesn't have a lot of money himself as it is. My mom was able to give me $20.00 in gas money to make it down there and back so I'm just crossing my fingers that everything will turn out okay.
 
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