# Respiratory problems and treating with baytril antibiotics?



## james1974

When treating tortoises with a 2.5% baytril antibiotic injections,does .05cc dose daily for for ten days sound about right or should it be every other day or every third day?They are all about 400 grams each.


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## ascott

My experience was 14 days, every day, alternating from left to right side at the loose skin between the neck and front leg....worked well, the patient here took to it well ...although taken for reason other than respiratory ailment....and I was treating an adult CDT...


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## sibi

It sounds about right. I've had one tortoise take it for 10 days intramuscular, and another take it under the skin every other day for 7 days. I think it depends on the vet and the severity of the RI. I had better results with the intramuscular injections, though.


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## Sulcata_Sandy

The Baytril injectable dose is 8mg/kg.
(Weight in kgs x 8, then divide by injectible strength...either 22.7mg/mL or 100mg/mL)
Injections are alternating front legs, every other day for at least five injections. I've gone 8 injections.

Nasal flushes with sodium chloride, daily. 

Soaks daily

Increase humidity and heat

Clean housing


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## skottip

If you can get ahold of Fortaz, it is a much better med.
Not as painful and can be administered every 3 days.
I have had great success with it in the past.

Scott


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## BeeBee*BeeLeaves

Sharing ... 

http://www.chelonia.org/articles/medical_misinformation.htm

www.animalhealth.bayer.com/fileadmin/media/baytril/pdf.../kap8.pdfâ€Ž

Also, Baytril was originally designed(?) - for dogs - and was to be one shot only, followed up with tablets/oral. FYI, leopards, stars and Galapagos have had adverse reactions and that will be noticed within an hour, usually the first 15-20 minutes. they look like they are at death's door. Deaths have only occurred with leopards from what I could find.

http://www.animalhealth.bayer.com/4...rdmx_pi1[tx_bahprdmx_prods.trademark]=BAYTRIL


Also, for sharing's sake, you decide, in this book, below, the author says that tortoises given Baytril die a few years later from gout in the kidneys. Baytril use is discussed on p 167. How the author came to his conclusion, it does not say. How does one correlate/tie a death by gout in the kidneys a few years later to these shots? But the bibliography is extensive.

Holger Vetter
Hermann's Tortoise, Boetger's and Dalmatian Tortoises
Edition Chimaira
Frankfurt am Main 2006
Germany
ISBN 3-89973-602-8


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## Sulcata_Sandy

It's not gout in the kidneys, it's probably renal failure from giving it in hind limb, and giving too often.


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## Yvonne G

Everyone Please!!!

Giving out dosages for strong medications, such as Baytril, over the internet is a bad, bad business. Baytril comes in different strengths. If someone uses the formula we've shown here, but has a different strength of Baytril than the formula was meant for, they could end up killing their tortoise.

Anyone who is going to medicate a tortoise should always get the dosage from a qualified vet first before doing it yourself.


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## BeeBee*BeeLeaves

Or, with all due respect, not use it at all. 
I say this only because Bayer Animal Health corporate, in Germany, told me by letter that it is not for use on tortoises. This was an accidental thing. I was trying to get their help with the protected CDTs in Nevada that were going to be euthanized by their protectors (grrrr). As I worked my way up the ladder to the Board of Directors, boom, I get stopped at the pass. The letter basically said sorry, but this medicine is not for tortoises, and we are therefore prohibited (that was the exact word) from helping your tortoise cause. 
For your consideration. Every keeper, of course, decides for themselves, for their tortoises. The more we know ...


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## Sulcata_Sandy

Precisely why I give the DOSE!! Not the volume. [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES] The current peer reviewed, industry accepted dose for Chelonians is 8mg per kg. I believe that is published in Plumbs (our PDR).
I'm a licensed veterinary technician, and this is the standard reptile dose. Most Baytril injectible is 22.7mg/mL. Use that to divide and you get your volume. 

I recently learned that a few species are sensitive to Baytril. Keepers need to know their animals, and I've not found any documentation of these potentially fatal sensitivities in any veterinary texts.

I'm not giving medical direction or treatment regime, I'm not Rx'ing any medications. I'm passing on well documented doseages. Not all DVMs have this info, hopefully they can update their notes and texts. LOL, one of my DVMs has a 25 year old reptile text...sorta outdata. [GROWING HEART]

Yvonne, I'm not saying you pointed fingers at me, but maybe you did. [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]
I'm clarifying that I only give dosages, not volumes to administer or instill. HUGE difference.


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## Yvonne G

Baytril comes in different strengths...large animal and small animal. What if the person who is reading the dosage here has the large animal strength, and is wanting to use it on a very young/small tortoise. He will read that he can use 8mg per kg of body weight, and 8mg per kg would be way too much of his higher strength medication to use on his tiny tortoise.


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## Tim/Robin

Yvonne G said:


> He will read that he can use 8mg per kg of body weight, and 8mg per kg would be way too much of his higher strength medication to use on his tiny tortoise.



Not true!! 8mg per kg is the dose. That has NOTHING to do with the quantity to inject!! It does not matter if the tortoise is a 20kg Sulcata or a 100 gram baby Redfoot, 8mg/kg is the what you use to figure out the dose in mg. What matters is the amount you inject in ml. What you are talking about is concentration. There is a huge difference between Baytril that is 22.7mg/ml and Baytril that is 100mg/ml!!


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## Sulcata_Sandy

Let's just pay hypothetical so we see what 8mg/kg really means.

Case example:
Oliver the Sulcata. He is 50 lbs
50 divided by 2.2 is 22.7 mg. MilliGRAMS. Not milliliters. Ok, now that I know Oliver needs 22.7 mg's of drug to treat his URI. I have two bottles of Baytril. One is 22.7mg/mL, the bigger bottle is 100mg/mL.

So, now I take Oliver's dose of 22.7 and DIVIDE by the strength of the product. The small bottle is 22.7 mg/mL. That's easy, he will require only 1 mL (aka cc, but don't get me started...metric only!!) of product to treat. 
If I use the larger bottle, at 100mg/mL, I would take his dose of 22.7mg and divide by 100 to get a volume of 0.227 mL.

Dose still 8mg/kg, but depending on product strength, thenVOLUME can be very different.


Second case study:
Larry the Greek. He is 500g
500grams divided by 2.2 is 0.227kgs
0.227 kg multipled by 8 (our dose for Chelonians) equals 1.816. Is round to 1.8mg.
So I have my small and large bottle of Baytril. If I choose to use the small bottle at 22.7mg/mL, I divided my dose by the strength. 1.8 / 22.7 = 0.079. I'd inject a volume of 0.08mL

if I choose to use the large bottle, being 100mg/mL, I would do this...
1.8mg / 100 = 0.01mL to be injected.

Dose this make sense?


Basically, take weight in kilograms, multiply by DOSE, then divide by drug STRENGTH.

I hope that clarifies matters. 

I took many years of human and veterinary pharmacology. [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]
I is nerd.


So see my point? 8mg/kg. Same dose, but one tortoise gets 0.08ml, the other gets 1.0mL


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## BeeBee*BeeLeaves

james1974, I hope your little Greeks do well. I hope that you have been able to give them soaks and warm and cozy and good holistic care. I completely related to what you were going through on your initial post, with their health issues. But I truly feel that the strange trip those wild caughts travel to get to us, again the Princess Alia Foundation pictures were very telling, is shell shocked stress. Injecting a stressed animal, in my layman's common sense thinking says, is adding to the stress and compromising the animal even further. Please make sure you are spot on on the pharma for the actual ailment. Apparently some bacteria is very Baytril/Enrofloxacin resistant now, then what to you do? In 2005, it was banned from use in poultry. Side effects, kidney damage and vision loss. 

This is all very informative. Good dialogue. I am still blown away that the maker says no, not for tortoises, and it is used on them. But I realize many of you have more experience with these things than I do. The risk of use, is what freaks me out.


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## Tim/Robin

Sulcata_Sandy said:


> Let's just pay hypothetical so we see what 8mg/kg really means.
> 
> Case example:
> Oliver the Sulcata. He is 50 lbs
> 50 divided by 2.2 is 22.7 mg. MilliGRAMS. Not milliliters. Ok, now that I know Oliver needs 22.7 mg's of drug to treat his URI. I have two bottles of Baytril. One is 22.7mg/mL, the bigger bottle is 100mg/mL.


This is close. Actually what you have done is figured out what Oliver weighs in kilograms (50 divided by 2.2 equals weight in kg). You then need to take the weight in kg and multiply that by the dose (8mg per kg in your example). Once you know the dose in mg then you take that and divide it by they drug concentration to give you the amount in ml to inject!!!


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## Sulcata_Sandy

Tim/Robin said:


> Sulcata_Sandy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Let's just pay hypothetical so we see what 8mg/kg really means.
> 
> Case example:
> Oliver the Sulcata. He is 50 lbs
> 50 divided by 2.2 is 22.7 mg. MilliGRAMS. Not milliliters. Ok, now that I know Oliver needs 22.7 mg's of drug to treat his URI. I have two bottles of Baytril. One is 22.7mg/mL, the bigger bottle is 100mg/mL.
> 
> 
> 
> This is close. Actually what you have done is figured out what Oliver weighs in kilograms (50 divided by 2.2 equals weight in kg). You then need to take the weight in kg and multiply that by the dose (8mg per kg in your example). Once you know the dose in mg then you take that and divide it by they drug concentration to give you the amount in ml to inject!!!
Click to expand...


Hahaha, yah, forgot to type that part. It was late....wanna know how many drug calculations I did yesterday????? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha [PILL][SYRINGE][PILL][SYRINGE][PILL][SYRINGE][PILL][SYRINGE]

Sometimes tough for me to slow down and teach. Muscle memory sorta thingy.

And yes...for everyone. 99% of drug dosages are in kgs. So you need an accurate and current weight, then convert to kg by the 2.2 divider.

I guess the key is understanding the difference in milliliters vs milligrams.

When I state that a dose is 8mg per kg...that is across the board (generalized...a few sp differ)
If I were to say that all tortoises require 8mL......now that IS a problem and I can easily see a reason to panic. [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]

Does this make more sense?

And no, I would not recommend dosing your animal any FDA labeled drug without a veterinarian. However, many many people have drugs on hand and "self prescribe". My goal is to provide accurate dosing. People, are going to do it...I do it. It saves money, it's faster if you are remote, if you have big guys and can't get a house call...whatever the reason, people are going to do it. Let's just do it accurately. [SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]


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## Yvonne G

I guess I'm still not understanding.

So you're saying that 8mg of the higher strength of Baytril equals 8mg of the lower strength? The weight of the tortoise remains the same, but the strength of the product is different.


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## Sulcata_Sandy

8 is just a dose. It's not volume. It does not mean 8 mL. You factor the weight of the animal by 8 to get your dose.

Thing about tablets instead of a volume of liquid. If I have an aspirin tablet and I needed to give it to my cat and my big dog, they are very different size, right?
To determine how much of a tablet each requires. I would take the dose....like the 8mg/kg and multiply that number to determine the amount of tablet to administer.

To visualize, the cat will receive 1/4 tablet, and the dog a whole tablet. Now this is arbitrary, I just wanted a visual.



[SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]


Here's another explanation....

It's 8mg per each kilogram the animal weighs. The more kilograms, the more drug required. 

If a tortoise weighs 1 kilogram, he needs 8mg (milligrams)
If a tortoise weighs 2 kilograms, he needs 16 mg
...and so forth. 

Now, I have this bottle of Baytril that says 2.7%. That tells me that for each milliliter of liquid inside, it carries 22.7milliGRAMS (mg) of drug. So 1mL of liquid holds 22.7mg. 2mL holds 45.4mg.

Does that help?

Now I gotta go to work, and put this into practice!! [SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES][PILL]


Although I'd much rather keep sitting here watching Franklin eat his greens. [SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]


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## Yvonne G

Ok, forget the tortoise and his weight and just concentrate on the medication.

If I have the Baytril for large animals, or a higher strength of medication, isn't there more medication in a milligram of the medication than there is in a milligram of the Baytril for small animals?

If I boil coffee all day until its so strong it sticks to the side of the pan, isn't a milligram of that coffee stronger or more potent than a milligram of coffee barely boiled to make it colored?

Are you saying that a milligram of the 22.7 Baytil holds the same amount of medication as a milligram of the 100 Baytril does?


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## jaizei

Yvonne G said:


> Ok, forget the tortoise and his weight and just concentrate on the medication.
> 
> If I have the Baytril for large animals, or a higher strength of medication, isn't there more medication in a milligram of the medication than there is in a milligram of the Baytril for small animals?
> 
> If I boil coffee all day until its so strong it sticks to the side of the pan, isn't a milligram of that coffee stronger or more potent than a milligram of coffee barely boiled to make it colored?
> 
> Are you saying that a milligram of the 22.7 Baytil holds the same amount of medication as a milligram of the 100 Baytril does?



I think you're mixing up mg and ml. There is more medication in a ml of the 100 mg/ml than there is in the 22.7 mg/ml. The strengths refer to dilution. 

Using your coffee analogy, if the two pots were identical to start with then the only difference at the end is the amount of water. They would still have the same amount of coffee.


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## jaizei

Yvonne G said:


> Ok, forget the tortoise and his weight and just concentrate on the medication.
> 
> If I have the Baytril for large animals, or a higher strength of medication, isn't there more medication in a milligram of the medication than there is in a milligram of the Baytril for small animals?
> 
> If I boil coffee all day until its so strong it sticks to the side of the pan, isn't a milligram of that coffee stronger or more potent than a milligram of coffee barely boiled to make it colored?
> 
> Are you saying that a milligram of the 22.7 Baytil holds the same amount of medication as a milligram of the 100 Baytril does?



I think you're mixing up mg and ml. There is more medication in a ml of the 100 mg/ml than there is in the 22.7 mg/ml. The strengths refer to their dilution.


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## Tim/Robin

jaizei said:


> I think you're mixing up mg and ml. There is more medication in a ml of the 100 mg/ml than there is in the 22.7 mg/ml. The strengths refer to their dilution.


Precisely!! Concentration is everything!!! The 100mg/ml is much more concentrated than the 22.7mg/ml. Hence to give the same DOSE of each the amount given would be very different. The thing the OP needs to know is the mg/ml(concentration), not the % (although that could very likely be calculated as well). Baytril made available through vet will have the concentration listed on the bottle!


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## Sulcata_Sandy

The percent is easy, just move the decimal over [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]

2.7% = 22.7mg/mL


2.27%. DOH!!


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## byhero

Sulcata_Sandy said:


> Let's just pay hypothetical so we see what 8mg/kg really means.
> 
> Case example:
> Oliver the Sulcata. He is 50 lbs
> 50 divided by 2.2 is 22.7 mg. MilliGRAMS. Not milliliters. Ok, now that I know Oliver needs 22.7 mg's of drug to treat his URI. I have two bottles of Baytril. One is 22.7mg/mL, the bigger bottle is 100mg/mL.
> 
> So, now I take Oliver's dose of 22.7 and DIVIDE by the strength of the product. The small bottle is 22.7 mg/mL. That's easy, he will require only 1 mL (aka cc, but don't get me started...metric only!!) of product to treat.
> If I use the larger bottle, at 100mg/mL, I would take his dose of 22.7mg and divide by 100 to get a volume of 0.227 mL.
> 
> Dose still 8mg/kg, but depending on product strength, thenVOLUME can be very different.
> 
> 
> Second case study:
> Larry the Greek. He is 500g
> 500grams divided by 2.2 is 0.227kgs
> 0.227 kg multipled by 8 (our dose for Chelonians) equals 1.816. Is round to 1.8mg.
> So I have my small and large bottle of Baytril. If I choose to use the small bottle at 22.7mg/mL, I divided my dose by the strength. 1.8 / 22.7 = 0.079. I'd inject a volume of 0.08mL
> 
> if I choose to use the large bottle, being 100mg/mL, I would do this...
> 1.8mg / 100 = 0.01mL to be injected.
> 
> Dose this make sense?
> 
> 
> Basically, take weight in kilograms, multiply by DOSE, then divide by drug STRENGTH.
> 
> I hope that clarifies matters.
> 
> I took many years of human and veterinary pharmacology. [GRINNING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]
> I is nerd.
> 
> 
> So see my point? 8mg/kg. Same dose, but one tortoise gets 0.08ml, the other gets 1.0mL




please explain this "divided by 2.2". So, what does "2.2" mean?? i cannot understand


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## deadheadvet

This thread is quite humorous. Only one person made any sense (Yvonne) is correct. Baytril should not be given by injection. It will cause muscle necrosis. Should be given orally. Scott is also correct. Fortaz would be a better choice for Resp. Disease.


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## Aunt Caffy

byhero said:


> please explain this "divided by 2.2". So, what does "2.2" mean?? i cannot understand


If you measure your tortoise in pounds, you divide the number of pounds by 2.2 to find out how many kilograms (kg) your tort weighs.

For example if your tortoise weighs 2.2 pounds, that is the same as 1kilogram. If your tort weighs 4.4 pounds, that's 2 kilograms.

Another interesting conversion regards water density. Water weighs approximately 1 gram per milliliter (1 g/mL). 1 liter of water is 1000 milligrams, so 1 liter weighs 1000 grams which is 1 kilogram. A lot of times, you will see people use mg/L (milligrams per liter) interchangeably with mg/kg (milligrams per kilogram). 

These doses look like they're given in milligrams of Baytril per kg of tortoise.


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## ZEROPILOT

After consulting with folks here I insisted on Fortaz for my Redfoot. (through my vet)
It was simple and effective.
I know this is off topic.


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## BeeBee*BeeLeaves

I see this thread was started 2 years ago, but I wanted to share that when I asked the makers of Baytril to help out on some issues with the desert tortoises in Nevada (when they were being threatened with euthanasia), the top people in Germany sent me a formal letter saying that Baytril is not approved for tortoises and was never meant to be used for them, here in the USA. (Different in Europe? Do not not know.) Also, The Tortoise Trust warns that leopard tortoises are highly allergic to Baytril and have died from it. Just an add, for your consideration, on this matter.


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## Aunt Caffy

BeeBee*BeeLeaves said:


> I see this thread was started 2 years ago, but I wanted to share that when I asked the makers of Baytril to help out on some issues with the desert tortoises in Nevada (when they were being threatened with euthanasia), the top people in Germany sent me a formal letter saying that Baytril is not approved for tortoises and was never meant to be used for them, here in the USA. (Different in Europe? Do not not know.) Also, The Tortoise Trust warns that leopard tortoises are highly allergic to Baytril and have died from it. Just an add, for your consideration, on this matter.


I was just commenting on measurement units. It's the kind of question I deal with at work.


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## BeeBee*BeeLeaves

Aunt Caffy said:


> I was just commenting on measurement units. It's the kind of question I deal with at work.



Yes, totally. The Baytril mention reminded me. I think it was not until a year later, in 2014, that the Nevada tortoises were in a dilemma and what I mentioned above happened. I kinda hijacked this thread, so I am very sorry. The Baytril thing just stuck with me from when Bayer Animal Health in Germany sent me the legal letter that they could not help out and why.


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