What's wrong with him

Looks like respiratory distress to me. It can be caused by a number of things. Possibly environmental (usually temps too low for too long, but could also be from some kind of irritant he encountered while loose, like maybe a cleaning chemical or essential oil). Alternatively the cause could be bacterial or viral.

If respiratory infection is caught early enough, you can treat it simply by raising his temp to 90-92 degrees and giving him a daily steam bath. (In my case I did this by bringing him in the bathroom with me while taking a super hot steamy shower.) This treatment was recommended my vet, who is a reptile specialist. Last year one of mine had gotten a bit of a wheeze. He wasn’t gaping or blowing bubbles yet, it was still very early on and the treatment worked wonderfully. Within a week he was fine.

Unfortunately your case looks more severe than mine was, and may require antibiotics. But until you get him to the vet, higher temp and steam treatments may ease his symptoms and make him feel a bit more comfortable.

Thank you very much for the info I am currently trying to get some f10 to treat him with as I honestly cant afford a vet visit

No problem. Make sure you get the original F10SC, not the F10SCXD which has added detergent. I use both for cleaning purposes, never used them to treat infection but I’ve heard it can work. I order them from ReptileBasics.

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Yeah I know I took him to a local reptile shop and the guy told me to raise his enclosure temps to like 103° for 3 days and that should cure it but I’m not going to do that and i looked on reptilebasics and it says out of stock but I have found a website with it in stock

Sadly while this will alleviate the issue, proper diagnoses, based on culture is absolutely necessary.

RI are not like a cold in human that goes away nor all RI are the same so a culture and proper (not all RI are treated with the same antibiotic) injectable antibiotic treatment of no less than 30 days is necessary.

Keep in mind that stress (communal housing for example) and improper husbandry are a great recipe for RI

Pet ownership is a great responsibility and ability to provide vet care is one of those, find the right herp vet and for the rest most vet offer payment plans and there are also credit card that are specific allowing to help with medical bills (human and animal)

If you are dealing with a RI do not delay.

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With what @stewart_reptiles said, you can get credit cards specifically for that as long as the vet accepts it. I used CareCredit to take my girl Butters to the vet for her jaw abscess, it allowed my boyfriend and I to be able to get her the care she needed.
Now she’s healing nicely and is starting to look SO much better!

103°F seems dangerously high to me, especially for 3 whole days!

@stewart_reptiles is correct on all points. This snake has not been properly cared for and really should see a vet. :frowning:

I’ve only had him for 5 days

Then the guy you got him from wasn’t caring for him properly and sold you a sick snake. Gonna assume that was the same guy that told you it was OK to cohab snakes? I would honestly make him pay for the vet bills.

Gonna tell you right now, do what needs to be done and get this guy to a vet. No amount of steaming, upped heat, ect ect is gonna help him like a visit to the vet will. I fought for months with a snake and to little to late took her to a vet. Borrow money, get a temporary credit card, a bank loan, something. Owning an animal means you gotta do what you have to and get treatment. Even with just 5 days ownership you don’t wanna lose them to an illness. I’m sure you’d be devistated. And don’t just get him checked, get the other checked as well. Being housed together and possibly improperly… You don’t wanna risk losing both snakes.

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These poor animals are made to suffer so much due to false information being passed along. Seems like people just literally don’t care to do the research and just bring them into their homes and the animals have to pay for it. I almost wish a license or some sort of test was required to own exotics and reptiles. Its not fair to them and once you get into this hobby you see people posting snakes like this on a weekly basis. Its just so sad for the animals and not fair to them in the slightest. I hope you’re able to get him the help he needs and upgrade your enclosures.

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Another bit of advice that may help if you’re tight on cash: at least around here a few of the vets that see reptiles offer a first time discount on the exam. It can’t hurt to ask if they can offer some kind of discount like this as an incentive to try them out. I think I saved something like $40 on my first visit, and the tactic worked for them since I did end up liking the clinic and would go back again for regular price.

Definitely take the snake to the vet. The sooner you do it, the less it’s going to cost to fix.

In my case I had a ball python that contracted some kind of bacterial gut infection. I was so worried that it was going to be insanely expensive to treat. Although having to spend the money sucks no matter what, it was at least more manageable than I had worried. And again like I said, it’s always cheaper to treat before more complications come up.

@bob_marley Man, I’m so sorry. I really doubt he would have gone from perfectly healthy to mouth gaping like that in just 5 days. It’s likely that he was sick before you got him. :confounded: And the other one might catch it if it hasn’t already. You should definitely clean the other enclosure if you haven’t done that yet.

I get so disgusted when I hear stories like this about newly purchased sick snakes. The snakes are almost always from a pet store or some shady casual owner pawning off his snakes on someone else so they can grab a bit of cash before the snakes finally die from their neglect.

In a scenario like this, is there anything that can be done about the seller? Would reporting them for animal abuse do any good at all?

I suppose this is one reason I should be glad that in Florida, a specific FWC (Fish & Wildlife Commission) license is required to sell any reptile. I think it cuts down on a lot of sketchy seller situations.

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I’ve texted the person I got him from and I am returning him

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Poor thing. I understand your reasons for returning him! It’s too bad though that the orginal owner definitely won’t take it to the vet. I hope someone knowledgable who’s willing to pay the vet fees gets him soon, before he dies.

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I’m treating him with f10 before I do return him

Just be careful the previous owner might somehow blame you for all of this if they find out or somehow know you’ve been treating it with something.