Originally Posted by kellymack515

Thank you for your reply Anya. Hopefully I can clarify a few things.

I'd checked on the Nic multiple times after I got her but she was always hiding behind her water bowl and I didn't want to stress her out by messing with her. She was in a distinct dark phase when I got her and had significantly lightened up in the two weeks I had to wait to take her to be dewormed (my vet was on vacation). She still doesn't have much color. She's an incredibly dark Nic. But my quarantine is in the closet in my bedroom so it's always dark in there anyway (I use a red bulb so I don't disturb the snakes and rarely bring a lamp in). Once I had her out and under the spotlight at the vet, I noticed the color. She has very pale pink cheeks and a bit of orange on her belly. Her back is still mostly black and gray. The color still isn't fully evident just by looking at her but it *is* there.

I did inspect the babies initially and they went to the vet the day I got them. There was one mite evident at that time and both were treated for them. I was trying to give Chris and Randy the benefit of the doubt. As I said, the Nic's color was barely visible. She fooled me at first as well.

As for the multiple vet visits... I take every new snake I get to my vet immediately to be dewormed. Her first vet visit was the day I got her. The second was for the stomatitis and to start her on Baytril (approximately ten days later). The third visit was for tube-feeding which was three weeks after the second visit. As I said, she'd lost over half of her body weight in three weeks and I was worried that she wouldn't have the strength to fight the infection. We also treated her for mites again as they were still present. The fourth visit was a week after that. I took her in for tube-feeding again and to see about putting her on another medication. We started Agrimycin that day but she passed the next morning. I know it was a lot of visits but I was desperate. I'd come home to find her draped over her water dish with her head hanging limply to the side. She never moved. I was terrified.

As I said, I don't have any emails unfortunately. I'd be more than happy to copy the text messages but I'm not sure they'd contribute as much to credibility.