Infection Resulting From Breeding

[Jeff]

I noticed this week that one of my female northerns had what appeared to be some sort of infection. From a distance it almost appeared like she had ticks attached to her shoulders/sides. A closer look revealed that they were actually pockets of pus. They were all in the areas that a male skink had clamped onto her during breeding between Feb. 20 - Mar. 2.

I knew this was something that I was not qualified to diagnose and treat on my own, so I made an appointment with the vet. I replaced her substrate with paper towels and kept the heat on at one end of her enclosure 24 hours/day until the appointment. I am really mad at myself for forgetting to take pictures of her before the vet visit.

This is what the vet did to treat her:

- He used his fingernail to force the pus out of the wounds.
- He cleaned the pus off with cotton swabs, then rinsed her in warm water.
- He then gave her .5 cc of Baytril orally.
- Next he applied Silvadene topically to the wounds.
- He also gave her .5cc of Panacur to treat for pinworms he found in her stool.

My instructions are to give her .5cc Panacur tomorrow and the next day, then an additional .5 cc two weeks from now. I also need to run warm water over the wounds for 5-10 minutes a day and wipe down with Betadine before applying the Silvadene for 10 days. She also gets .5 cc of Baytril for 14 days. Kind of a pain, but she should be just fine in a couple weeks.

I am pretty clueless when it comes to medical issues, so I would like to hear if that sounds like reasonable treatment to those of you that are knowledgeable. Here are some pictures of her after the vet visit. Remember, some of the "scuffed up" scales are perfectly normal 4-6 weeks after breeding.

[Fatal_S]

Hi Jeff,

Not exactly knowledgable, but this seems like almost the exact treatment my vet did when an IJ had an abssess on her lip. Drained it, cleaned it, topical antibiotical, plus oral baytril for 14 days. The lip healed amazingly, no sign the abcess was ever there.

Treatment of mites also sounds right, at least in that you treat now and then again 2 weeks later. Pancur is supposed to be a very safe drug, even up to 10x times normal dosage.

If you're wondering about common dosages you could check Melissa Caplan's site: (http://www.anapsid.org/resources/rxdose.html)

This is all I know of. Good luck with the pretty lady-skink.

[Scotts1au]

Hi Jeff, sorry for your ordeal.

You didn't state which Baytril mixture you are using.

I believe the most common is Baytril 25 which is 25mg/ml. See a good summary of common dosages which I have used in the past http://www.anapsid.org/resources/rxdose.html

A 1kg lizard will require 10mg/kg/25 (high dose per kg) = 0.4 ml (cc) to give 10mg/kg of body weight.

If your lizard is 800g then it would be .8*.4= .32 ml

I don't know what the risk of varying from the high dose is with this sort of variation but your dose is in the "ball park" to quote an Americanism

The rest sounds reasonable if not a little over the top

[Jeff]

Thanks guys. The vet I took her to is recommended very highly, and I have known of him for at least 15 years, I have just never needed to take a skink in before, so I thought I would ask for reassurance that the treatment seemed reasonable (if not over the top). I am assuming that the infection came from something in the cypress mulch that I keep her on, but none of my other skinks have had any issues. Is it possible that she may be allergic to the mulch?

The Baytril is: Exotic Baytril suspension 10mg/ml

[Scotts1au]

Sounds about right then.

[Alioop]

Jeff this is really interesting. Thank you for sharing your experience. I hope all goes well with your girl.

[Katrina]

Very interesting thread, thanks for posting this.

I've only ever used 25mg/kg, the one Scott mentioned. I know that it is diluted down because it tastes awful, I assume that the rationale behind giving 10 mg/kg is that you need to give a larger dose but it will be less distasteful?

Scott - where you thinking that the Betadine / Silvadene was over the top or the oral Baytril? I was thinking that one of these would likely suffice, but I don't know enough about this kind of thing to be sure. Which would you think is more appropriate?

Seems like a good vet though, better safe than sorry. I'm sure she'll heal up nicely. Any concerns with her being potentially / likely gravid and the meds? Did the vet say anything about that?

Sorry for all the questions, I love these kind of topics!

[Jeff]

I didn't ask about the affects of the meds on possible babies because my first priority was the mother. I assume there is at least some risk, but I made it clear that she was likely gravid and the vet didn't mention anything about danger to the babies. If the risk was great, I would expect him to mention it. I am interested to see how things go.

[El Lobo]

Sorry your girl has this infection.

When the pus was expelled, did it flow readily or was it more the consistency of toothpaste? Probably seems a strange question but from what I have learned, reptilian abscesses lack an enzyme that allows pus to flow, making them more difficult to treat. They are also encapsulated and can regrow from any residual capsule. I'm certainly not going to argue with your vet's treatment protocol but I just wondered about the daily flushing with plain water as it is not sterile.

An extract from some vet notes I have for treating BTS with Baytril:

" The elevated dose rate (10mg/kg) ensures the peak level achieved is well above the MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) required for efficacy and the decreased frequency (q (every)48hrs) accounts for the slower metabolism of antimicrobials seen in reptiles."

If you are having a nerdy moment searching for efficacy and peak levels of antibiotics is informative. They are displayed as a bell curve of elapsed time according to metabolism. I guess though you would need to be a nerd to get excited by this.

I agree with Kat, Baytril tastes disgusting.

I've included this picture of one of our rabbits who had an open surgical wound to remove necrotic fat from the panniculus which I believe was caused by injecting Baytril. It was flushed twice daily with sterile 0.9% sodium chloride intravenous infusion.

[Jeff]

Very helpful El Lobo. The pus was indeed the consistency of toothpaste or thicker. My understanding was that the rinsing under very warm water was mostly to facilitate good blood flow rather than to clean the wounds. I was under the impression that wiping her down with Bentadine afterwards was to sterilize things, then the topical solution was to kill the infection. This is why I posted this. I don't have a very good understanding of how these treatments work. Thanks for your help.

[El Lobo]

I forgot to add this link. There is a pop-up table describing dosages as well.

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index ... 171407.htm

In this link as well as the anapsid.org there is an antibiotic Amikacin (amiglyde sulfate). If this is ever prescribed by a vet I would urge doing some research on the side effects before using it other than very short term.

[El Lobo]

Very helpful El Lobo. The pus was indeed the consistency of toothpaste or thicker. My understanding was that the rinsing under very warm water was mostly to facilitate good blood flow rather than to clean the wounds. I was under the impression that wiping her down with Bentadine afterwards was to sterilize things, then the topical solution was to kill the infection. This is why I posted this. I don't have a very good understanding of how these treatments work. Thanks for your help.

I see the point now Jeff.

The Merck link above has some good information on abscesses.

[kl]

Regarding the safety of Baytril for gravid animals, I have seen warnings on websites about giving it to pregnant dog and cats but could not find any warnings about giving it to gravid reptiles. I also had to give a female blue tongue baytril this season after she mated and am am hoping it won't cause any problems if she's gravid.

Kim

[Alioop]

How's she doing Jeff?

[Jeff]

She is doing great Alie, you would never know there was an issue. Interestingly enough though, her sibling started to develop the same thing about a week and a half after her. It is much less severe, and I did my best to remove the puss as the vet did, and I am treating her with the Silvadene. If that doesn't take care of it, I will get some more Baytril but I am interested to see if it can be treated without.

I had a total of 9 females breed this year, and only these two sisters had any issue. I am thinking they may be somehow genetically sensitive to cypress much. I don't know what else would cause the very minor breeding wounds to become infected.

[Richard.C]

thats an interesting point jeff,blueys normally heal up from breeding wounds quite well on there own,perhaps the substrate harboured something they were sensative to,theres also the slight possability they had the infection already and the stress of breeding has made them succumb,but yeah,its hard to pin point how its happened and why to just those 2

as for baytril affecting gravid skinks,ive had a stumpy have a normal litter after having had a 2 week course of it md way through the babies development back when my westerns had a respitory infection,the adults wernt showing any signs of infection but i treated them anyways as i had put the previous years stumpies back in with them to seperate from my juvie westerns

[Jeff]

That's good to hear about the stumpy having no effects from the Baytril Richard. I am really hoping to NOT need to treat the 2nd skink so that I can compare the difference between the two siblings with one being treated with Baytril and one not.

[Alioop]

Thinking out loud here: I wonder if the effects of administering Baytril to a pregnant skink differ depending on what stage of development the fetuses (is this the correct term for a bub in the womb??) are in when the Baytril is given....??

[kl]

According to my vet, the answer is that the worst time to give Baytril is in the first trimester though she may have been talking about traditional animals like cats and dogs.

Kim

[El Lobo]

There is not much information specific to reptiles for the use of enrofloxacin (Baytril).

A couple of points from the more detailed data sheet for oral Baytril:

Use during pregnancy and lactation
In the absence of data on its use in some exotic species, caution should be used when prescribing during these periods and a careful risk/benefit assessment made.

Further information
Enrofloxacin is a synthetic, broad spectrum antimicrobial substance, belonging to the fluoroquinoline group of antibiotics. Enrofloxacin is bactericidal in action with activity against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria and mycoplasmas. The mechanism of action of the quinolones is unique among antimicrobials - they act primarily to inhibit bacterial DNA gyrase, an enzyme responsible for controlling the supercoiling of bacterial DNA during replication. Resealing of the double stranded helix is inhibited resulting in irreversible degradation of the chromosomal DNA.
The fluoroquinolones also possess activity against bacteria in the stationary phase by an alteration of the permeability of the outer membrane phospholipid cell wall. The pharmacokinetics of enrofloxacin are such that both oral and parenteral administration leads to similar serum levels. Enrofloxacin possesses a high distribution volume. Tissue levels 2-3 times higher than found in the serum, have been demonstrated in laboratory animals and target species.
Organs in which high levels can be expected are the lungs, liver, kidney, skin, bone and lymphatic system.
Enrofloxacin also distributes into the cerebrospinal fluid, the aqueous humour and the foetus in pregnant animals.

Full data sheet here:

http://wildlife1.wildlifeinformation.or ... ral_DS.pdf