Hey so I need help , my snake is a pewter lesser , and she’s grown a absolute ton in the month I’ve had her but she has has a faint whistle only on the exhale ? I have checked her nose and no stuck shed , I have checked her mouth and she has no extra saliva , her humidity sits at 55-65 constantly but drops quickly because I live in a dry climate and with winter it’s worse but I try my best to keep her humidity as high as possible , I have tried using vapor rub boiled with water and put it in glass and with her in a big deli cup with holes in it all in a big tote like what goherping did … did that a few times and it worked for a while and then randomly it came back again and I have no idea what can be causing it , can anyone offer any advice ?
I only have one ball python In my collection but I can say every now and then I will here a whistle or puff but every single time on exhale nope. The vapor rub thing is the first I’ve ever heard of it…Me personally not something I’d do since not sure what effects it might have on the animal. The humidity around 50’s seems good to me.
Oh and welcome aboard…Sorry I could not be much help.
Welcome to the community 
When you say whistle, how does it sound?
Is it a wheezing type of noise or a click or raspy and mucusey?
Sounds like a respiratory problem.Does it have bubbles coming out of its mouth?I have heard of other people using the vapor rub technique before. I personally haven’t used it myself. First try raising your temps up like 5 degrees. Sometimes this can be enough to knock out an Ri. A lot of people have successfully used f10 in a respirator in the treatment of respiratory infections. This might be your next course of action if raising the temps doesn’t cure the problem.
If your animal is possibly sick, I am a firm believer in taking it to the vet for a checkup no matter what others say. I got a snake that was sick from a breeder (she had and RI) and all they were doing to “treat” her was raising her temps and making it humid in her enclosure. I do not believe (especially since raising temps can be dangerous) that just raising temps or a steam “treatment” are acceptable when possibly dealing with an RI. You want to get treating it properly ASAP so your animal has the best chance of survival, not wait to see if it gets worse. I also wouldn’t use vapor rup, since it is meant for humans and you never know what it could actually be doing to your animal.
If it actually is a respiratory infection, it needs to be treated by a veterinarian, probably with antibiotics, rather than any home treatment.
Is it possible that she is going into shed? Because at least with my snake (boa) when he is going in shed he shows the early signs of in RI like heavier breathing sometimes the occasional puff. Does this sort of stuff happen in ball pythons? That is what I’m wondering.
Okay by whistle I mean it sounds legit like a whistle mixed with a wheeze you hear from a person with asthma after running not congested but more like a dry raspy almost ? , I have checked for RI and she dosnt have it , she has no bubbles she dosnt have and extra sailings or mucus , she dosnt act sick she’s still a baby (6months old ) I have not measured her or weighted her but I will later today to give update , but she only has the whistle after when I handle her for a while she is a weird girl and is a bull snake she won’t stop moving she’s always in the mood for exploration , I wonder if it’s because my famliy smokes in the house ? Or possibly a tiny piece of substrate got stuck in her nose ? Because a few times now I’ve had to pull substrate from her mouth due to missed hits when feeding ? But I couldn’t see any and with a wiggly baby it would be hard to see nonetheless , her hot side temp is 84 and cold sits around 75-65 , I dont want to raise the temp due to the humidity because the substrate can’t hold the humidity bc here where I live it has 0humidity in winter and so it’s dry already and with higher temp it gets dirt dry in maybe 8 hours ? I’m using 1.5inch deep eco earth from some reptile company coconut coir but her humidity I try extremly hard to keep high at 60-55% I’ll raise her temp to 90 and raise humidity and continue the vapor rub treatments and update y’all if it worked or not , thank y’all so much for the help and suggestions ! I’ll update y’all in a week or so, Also somone let me know if those two things can give a snake a whistle or even possibly RI I’d rather solve the causing problem then do treatments for the rest of her life thanks!
Edit 1 Also if it continues after the week update I will see a vet
Be sure to tell the vet that people are smoking in the house.
I’m not a snake keeper, but smoking around reptiles is very, very bad for them. I’d ask your family members to please smoke outside. Smoking is bad for humans but even worse for reptiles. Likewise you don’t want to spray any aerosols or use incense burners around reptiles. I also recommend a vet appointment, home remedies are normally ineffective or occasionally harmful to the animal. And as westridge stated, tell the vet what exactly is being smoked in the house.
New here, but I bought 2 balls from a local store 3-4 years ago that I knew had RIs with the intention of getting them to the vet. It was obvious to us that the store wasn’t going to do anything about it and figured being a pet store they were 90% ending up with some kid that shouldn’t have to deal with that. So my daughter and I brought them home. To the point. I had just read about treating Reptile RIs with vicks and boiling water. However it claimed that putting a couple drops of eucalyptus oil in the water worked so the vapors opened the breathing and nutrients from the eucalyptus helped with the healing.
(I know this is controversial to a lot of people. And I do not say in anyway that a vet obviously, is not the best answer!)
There is a But (again not claiming I know better than any trained Vet) These are animals that can survive being gassed. They don’t breathe as humans do and honestly having these supplies in a pinch could help out if it were just to sooth the animal until you can get to the vet.
I decided to try before taking them in. Built the setup. Boiled the water. Poured it in a cup with Vicks and oil, covered the cup with plastic wrap, poked hole and placed it in the setup and put the lid on. I did this every 3 days, 20 minutes a time, each snake separately. A total of 4 times before I took them to the vet.
Both snakes showed vast improvement each time and by the time the vet stood for the checkup and some testing. Both snakes were doing well. The vet did tell me that he would normally never tell anyone to do what I did, but he didn’t feel that they needed antibiotics at that point. That night I did it once more and both snakes are fine today. The champagne boy contributed in a clutch last year for me that I actually just asked for help on in another post. The normal female is an awesome loving snake I just can’t bring myself to part with.
Again. NOT saying this would be the answer. ALL Breeders and pet owners have a responsibility to each animal to care for them to the Best of their abilities. Usually this is a Vet. I’ve since not had another chance to try this method and honestly am very happy about that. Husbandry should be the cornerstone of this hobby!
I am saying that unless these snakes were already on the mend. The method worked, the ONLY time I needed to try it.
PLEASE everyone take sick and/or injured animals to a Vet. I’m fairly sure none of us would watch YouTube to learn how to take our children’s appendix out.
Using f10 and a breathing machine is not a steam treatment. Most Ri infections are bacterial infections the f10 kills the bacteria. Some people don’t have easy access to a vet that will actually treat reptiles.
F10 has a chance to kill the bacteria. Not all bacteria will be killed by F10, and not all RIs are from bacteria, or just one strain. My snake had 3 strains of bacteria and needed injections+a vet prescribed breathing treatment that wasn’t F10. This brings up a very common issue in the hobby sadly. If you don’t have access to the proper vet, don’t get the pet. That goes for all animals, as if anything goes wrong, you (and the animal) are SOL.
Really? I thought all Youtubers were experts.
In all seriousness I agree with you completely.
Because vapor rub treatment( which I think is a completely foolish idea to use on a snake or any reptile) isn’t a cure for RI, it MAY lessen the symptoms but it won’t take the infection away. To bad the YouTuber (goherping) didn’t mention that part.
Update time yall , I totally forgot to update this , but she’s doing a lot better and the vapor rub added with chlorahexine? I forgot how to spell it worked for me , a lot , and now she only kinda has a very very faint whistle when she’s breathing really heavy after being a spaz and wanting to be a wormy wriggly snake , other then that she’s 100% fine even saw a vet and said it’s due to her being really active and moving around a ton and the sound is her breathing in heavy from moving around a lot and quickly , other then that she got a perfect bill of health and she is actually growing a lot faster then normal so that’s good , just my weird snake being a snake I guess , don’t use this as advice , please see a vet , I didn’t till I knew I absolutely had to because I don’t have the type of money to shell out 500+ to see a vet most the time because My job dosnt pay me worth anything and I’m saving my money rn to move out , but she’s my child so I would do anything for her… enjoy the picture
Would like to put this here since there is mention of using F10 to treat snakes. I didn’t actually know f10 was a cleaner until I read this thread. Blows my mind that anyone would think an animal inhaling it would be a good plan.