Medicating Snakes with Catheter
Although administrating medications orally to snakes can be done quite easily with a bit of practice, it is a lot easier to have some body assist with the procedure and especially when it comes to restraining the snake.  It is important to have every thing you need at hand before you begin the procedure as once you have the snake restrained you really need to get the job done as quickly as possible to minimize the stress that will be temporally inflicted on the reptile. To administer any medication straight to a reptile's stomach you will need to have a suitable sized catheter that can be slid down the snake's oesophagus with reasonable comfort. These can be bought from most veterinarians and come in many different sizes and lengths. One draw back with your standard catheters however, is that they do not have any marks of measurements on them. I prefer to mark the sides of these with a permanent marker in order to estimate just how far it has traveled towards the stomach. You must never push a catheter further down or past the anterior section of its stomach.
It is very important to coat the catheter with a suitable lubricant that is digestible. I prefer to use vegetable oil as it is easy to clean off the catheter when washing up. As an easy way of lubricating the catheter I use the tube container that the catheter originally comes in and then fill it up to the top with vegetable oil and just have a small hole drilled into its cap. This helps keep oil spillage to a minimum and removes any excess oil off the catheter when it is pulled back out.   (see Diagram 1)
Ideally for quarantine purposes, and to eliminate the risk of cross contamination, a new catheter should be used for every new reptile dosed. Because of cost restraints however, I prefer to use the same catheter and sterilize the used catheter into a pot of boiling water between dosing each snake. One of the problems in reusing the same catheter is that it will sometimes end up with numerous holes caused by the snake's needle sharp teeth. To get around and to help make the insertion of the catheter into the snakes month very easy, I use a standard screw on plastic nozzle that you get at any local hardware store that is supplied with glue and silicone cartridges (see Diagram 2 ).
The nozzle will need to have a larger hole cut in the end to adequately accommodate the catheter diameter. By inserting the plastic nozzle into the snake mouth, the catheter can then be comfortably quickly inserted straight down the oesophgus through the nozzle without any restrictions and be fully protected from sharp teeth. ( see Diagram 3 ).
This plastic nozzle will also avoid the accidental insertion of the catheter into the snakes trachea and causing the snakes death. It may sound like a silly mistake that most people would never make, but I have known a few inexperienced people to do exactly that.. Another advantage in the plastic nozzle is that it provides a less than harsh lever to pry the snake's mouth open. I generally find that gentle manipulation under the rostral area with the nozzle is all that is needed for the snake to open its mouth.   It is advisable when treating small snakes with potentially dangerous drugs to use the smallest syringe as possible to accurately measure the desired dosage correctly. When feeding down the catheter it is important to keep the snake body as straight as possible to ensure that it travels down the oesophagus with out obstruction. I find that holding the snake's body vertical with its head up helps to achieve this. It is important that when doing this that its body weight is supported and that when it is so handy to have assistance from a second person. You should never continue if you can feel any resistance.