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ElliotJasChief
10-29-2005, 12:53 AM
Hey everyone...its been quite a while since I've surfaced...nice to see you all again.

My blue tegus are currently living outside so help they hibernate as naturally as possible...and I'm having problems :D

Its been getting much cooler here lately (mid-80s in the day, 65-70 at night) and I think they are preparing to go down for good (they only come out once every couple days now). They were out today so I weighed them (the male is 8 lbs, female 4.2 lbs, btw) and gave them both a once over and the discovered the female has snot literally POURING out of her nostrils 8O .

So - its been quite a while since I've had an animal with a respiratory infection (I'm pretty confident that's what it is, but any other opinions are welcome :D ). I've brought her inside til she gets better, and I was wondering if anyone has any advice on curing this and avoiding it in the future. The cage I'm keeping her in is about 80 - 110 (cool side - warm side) and I'm keeping the humidity low...any other suggestions? I'm hoping she gets better quickly so putting her back outside is not too much of a shock w/ the temp change.

tupinambis
10-29-2005, 05:13 AM
Well, I would say you have something of a paradox on your hands. If you believe the St. Pierre's stance on what the blues are and where they originate, then the simple solution is that they don't hibernate naturally, and your forcing them to do so is likely going to continue causing health problems. Equatorially located lizards don't hibernate.

As for the respiratory infection diagnosis, without actually seeing the animal and such it would be hard to say for sure, but I would tend to agree with you from what you've said that your female has an upper respiratory tract infection. Contrary to what you have done, I'd keep her in a higher humidity (she's already going to be loosing a lot of water, putting her in a low humidity environment is only going to exacerbate the situation). Ever hear of people recommending for stuffed up sinuses and such to try a little "steam" therapy? Same sort of idea here. Without culturing what is actually causing the condition, any recommendation of medicine could prove faulty, but I've always had excellent results treating respiratory infections with Amikacin. There are two routes you could go, injecting it or the other route I've tried with great success for respiratory illnesses is to mix the Amikacin with sterile saline and nebulize it into a vapour for them to breathe (put the solution in a jar with an ultrasonic "fogger", then both this and your animal in something like a tupperware container for about 3-4 15-30min treatments daily and voila). I prefer the vapour therapy over injections for strictly respiratory related illnesses as this way the drug is delivered directly to the site of infection and you don't wind up possibly killing normal flora in the GI tract.

alex
10-29-2005, 04:39 PM
Ahhhh! you *need* to get that nasal cavity cultured. You should not just start administering antibiotics without actually knowing what you're treating if you want it to be effective.

It sounds like an upper respiratory infection because of how you say the snot is pouring out... lower respiratory tracts (like lungs and thoracic trachea) you tend to see productive coughing to bring up the mucus. Reptile infections tend to be repetitive, but because the animal has been outside she needs to be checked for things like fungal diseases, foreign bodies (sticks/grass awns/small pebbles get up noses so easily, or it could be she's eaten something that's gone through the choana) and those could cause inflammatory exudate but an antibiotic will not resolve the signs. Take her to a vet, get it cultured and get an exam to rule out FB's - I know tegus have relatively small nostrils, but it doesn't mean it can't happen, especially if it penetrated via the oral cavity. If you catch it early, a short course of antibiotic given parenterally (usually amikacin is given IM or SQ) won't be too harsh on gut flora. A nebuliser can be quite useful, but until you clear out that purulent snot, it's not going to be very effective at reaching the site, plus you actually have to have the nebuliser, a way of confining the animal in a very localised environment around the nebuliser, and then actually figuring out the dosage based on respiratory rate. Plus, allowing drug to be absorbed through the mucus membranes will do about as much gut flora damage as a subcutaneous injection of drug - if it gets in the systemic circulation, it's in the bloodstream all over the body, and amikacin is a drug where it's actually better to have a high peak blood concentration for effective bacterial killing and then a long period of low body concentration to avoid some nasty side effects on the kidney. It can also make your pet deaf, FYI, I'm sure I have at least one deaf turtle from using it, but I can't for the life of me figure out which one.

As for preventing it, the simple fact is you're trying to force a behaviour from that animal in an environment that is not native to it. It may be too cold, too dry, or she could have underlying predisposing factors that means she is more susceptible to the stressful physiological event she is going through. It's something you need to think about and weigh the risks and benefits to the animals to decide whether or not to go through with it. I don't think she will be safe to hibernate this year. You need to decide if next year you want to risk it - I have some reptiles that get an RI reliably upon exposure to cold because they have scar tissue in the lungs that predisposes them to it. If you want to breeding them, that should be different from breeding that particular tegu, or whether or not you can just have them as pets.

ElliotJasChief
10-31-2005, 03:21 PM
thanks for all the feedback.


Contrary to what you have done, I'd keep her in a higher humidity

Thats different from the "common knowledge" concerning RI that I was brought up on...but your explaination makes a lot more sense. :D

As far as whether or not blues hibernate. Does anyone else here breed blues? If so...do you hibernate them? I didn't hibernate them last year and I didn't see any breeding activity. (Interestingly enough my arg. B&W male was actually chasing females around all summer...he hadn't been hibernated either)

As for the patient in question...she's still acting normal and healthy and I don't see any more discharge on her nose...so I think she's gonna be alright.