Animal Health 4/28/20 - Giardia in Snakes

Dr. Karen Emerson of the Emerson Animal Hospital in West Point describes the symptoms and treatment for snakes suffering from the parasite Giardia

Dr. emerson: good morning, sunrisers!

I'm dr. karen emerson and today i have with me lily and this cute little baby ball python is penny.

Penny presented a few weeks ago basically not eating.

Lily, can you tell everybody why you decided to bring penny into the vet?

Lily: she wasn't eating and was just kind of got closer to the end where she could have died.

Dr. emerson: yeah, so she was really worried because it's so important that your snake eats.

Snakes can go several weeks to months without eating, but when they're this small, it's so important to find out why they're not eating, and it's so important anytime you get a new snake to bring them to your veterinarian.

So she brought penny.

We basically got a stool sample and figured out that penny had something known as giardia.

Giardia actually is a protozoan parasite that a lot of baby reptiles have.

Baby turtles, baby snakes, baby lizards, and this is actually something that is zoonotic that lily could have gotten from her snake.

Of course, she didn't because she uses really good washing hand practices.

So what we did was we actually dewormed penny with some special medication.

I wormed her here.

It was actually an oral medication and then they came back and we wormed her again.

Well, penny still really wasn't one to eat, so we brought her back in again and we actually did something called tube-feeding.

Yes, we tube-fed penny, and what that means is i actually inserted the tube into her mouth and i basically gave her something known as carnivore care.

Carnivore care is a liquid that has all the nutrients in it in order for your snakes to grow healthy.

After we did the feeding, i told them to go back home.

We wormed her one more time and told them to wait a little bit, let her have a bowel movement and let's see if she eats again.

Well, penny had a little bit of a bowel movement, came back in.

The bowel movement was really, really hard, really, really rocky which is not normal, so we actually ended up giving penny an enema.

Penny came back home, and tell everybody what she did!

Lily: she ate.

Dr. emerson: she ate!

So this is so important, guys.

Just don't stop and wait and watch.

It's so important that if your snake is not eating like they're supposed to be, to bring them in to your veterinarian, and, i promise, your pet will thank you!

I hope you have a great week!

Announcer: wcbi animal health with dr. emerson was brought to you by emerson animal hospital in west point