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Changelog

What's new in the ExoticRx formulary and calculator. We update this page whenever a release ships a user-visible change. For the editorial process behind dose-rule additions and revisions, see our editorial process.

  1. August 2026

    • Every dose rule now cites a page or table you can actually turn to. Book citations had recorded a position in our PDF copy rather than the printed page — for Plumb's the two differ by 27, so a citation to p.1036 for phenobarbital pointed at polyethylene glycol. 1,192 Plumb's citations now carry the printed page and monograph; Carpenter's, whose copy has no printed page numbers, is cited by its numbered tables (2,135 rules).
    • Doses with no source were withdrawn, not quietly kept. 58 rules for novel human drugs — served for dog and cat only, in round-number pairs, several admitting in their own notes that no veterinary data existed — are gone, along with 4 that cited this site's own dosing guide as their authority and 8 citing a journal and year with no author, title or DOI.
    • Contraindications are now checked against the prose, not just the numbers. Dexamethasone for acute canine spinal cord injury was withdrawn: Plumb's states high-dose use “is not supported” for spinal cord trauma, and the practice is associated with fatal colonic perforation. Oral cephalexin was withdrawn for mice, rats and hedgehogs — both Plumb's and Carpenter's advise against the oral route in small mammals because of enterocolitis; the injectable doses Carpenter's publishes remain, now carrying that warning.
    • A tortoise metoclopramide dose of 1–10 mg/kg was withdrawn and replaced with 0.06 mg/kg, the figure Carpenter's and Mader's both print for reptiles, and the one this formulary already served for turtles and snakes.
    • Infusion rates are no longer shown as single doses. Eight rules held a per-hour CRI rate in a column labelled mg/kg, so a 20 kg dog's metoclopramide rate rendered as “0.2–0.4 mg” beside bolus doses. They now read mg/kg/h and are never multiplied by body weight.
    • Evidence grades were made honest. 208 rules were downgraded to match the evidence tier recorded during source verification — 57 of them were marked Strong while resting on an unreferenced compilation. Grades were only ever lowered, never raised.
    • MDR1 breed-sensitivity notes now appear on every P-glycoprotein-substrate antiparasitic, quoting each drug's own source: at labelled doses these agents are safe in MDR1 dogs, and the books say where the risk actually begins.
    • Where a rule's range spans indications the book doses separately, it now says so — 38 rules carry the source's own per-indication breakdown, so the top of a range is not mistaken for the right dose for the mildest indication.
    • These changes are source-verification work, not veterinary review. Every dose still shows its citation and evidence grade; verify against the primary source before administering.
  2. July 2026

    • Free tier opened up: a free account now calculates doses for every species — 10 calculations a day, of which 3 can be exotic — no card required. Previously the exotic calculator needed a paid plan.
    • New exotic-vet directory at /vets — over 900 exotic-species practices across the US, searchable by state, so owners and referring clinics can find a vet who treats reptiles, birds, and pocket pets.
    • New per-species condition pages at /conditions — find cited drug options by clinical condition for a given species (e.g. respiratory infections in ball pythons, GI stasis in rabbits).
    • Reference doses fixed: non-weight-based rules (e.g. Vitamin A in IU/kg, topical and 'per label' regimens) now show their real dose from the source instead of a placeholder '0'.
    • Drug-page indications cleaned up — study-methodology notes that had leaked into the indication chips are now filtered out.
    • Legal and pricing pages reconciled with actual behavior: data-retention, student-plan renewal, cookie disclosures, and the calculators/interaction-checker scope of the disclaimer.
    • 9 more exotic species added — sugar glider, prairie dog, degu, gerbil, Syrian and dwarf hamster, Russian tortoise, veiled chameleon, and umbrella cockatoo — bringing the formulary to 44 species.
    • 123 additional dose rules, each independently re-verified against its cited source by two adversarial checks (source-fidelity re-fetch plus a species-and-safety review that rejects euthanasia, toxicity, and known-ineffective research doses). 36 candidate doses were dropped for cause and never published.
    • 17 new exotic species added — small psittacines (cockatiel, lovebird, green-cheeked conure, macaw, Amazon parrot), passerines (canary, zebra finch), domestic pigeon, popular reptiles (leopard gecko, crested gecko, corn snake, green iguana, blue-tongue skink), chelonians (red-eared slider, box turtle, sulcata tortoise), and mouse — bringing the formulary to 35 species.
    • 131 new dose rules, each sourced from peer-reviewed literature or a recognized guideline and carrying a resolvable citation, the source's verbatim wording, and a conservative evidence grade.
    • These new rules are literature-sourced and independently source-verified but not yet individually reviewed by a veterinarian — every dose shows its citation and evidence grade; verify against the primary source before administering.
  3. May 2026

    • New /species index page with all 14 covered species grouped by category (companion, pocket pets, reptiles, birds, equine, livestock).
    • Drug-class taxonomy clean-up — every drug is now classified onto one of 28 canonical therapeutic classes.
    • 62 formulation siblings (e.g. tablet vs. injectable forms of the same drug) now linked via parent_drug, surfaced as cross-references on each drug page.
    • Brand-name search fixed: querying a trade name (Baytril, Marbocyl, etc.) now returns the correct generic.
    • RSS news-feed relevance filter broadened — fewer canine-only items leak onto the public /news feed.
    • Marketing-page copy reconciled with actual product (real species lists, accurate counts, no fictional clinician).
    • Pricing page made candid about cited-pre-review status and DVM-reviewer recruiting status.
    • Account deletion flow now available from /account.
  4. April 2026

    • Initial public launch of the ExoticRx formulary: 1,100+ drugs, 3,800+ dose rules, 14 species.
    • Calculator with weight unit conversion (kg / lb / g) and concentration-aware mL volume math.
    • Per-drug evidence-level badges (Strong, Moderate, Weak, Anecdotal, Extrapolated) with primary-source citations.
    • Conditions index and per-condition pages cross-linking to drugs that cite each indication.
    • Drug comparison view, A–Z drug list, CSV export of calculated doses, and print-friendly dose printouts.
    • Stripe-backed Pro and Student subscriptions with 7-day money-back guarantee.
    • Progressive Web App with offline-cached drug catalog for clinic-floor use without connectivity.
    • Long-form articles and RSS feed for editorial guides and curated industry news.
    • Keycloak SSO with cookie-based iron-session auth and Cloudflare Turnstile bot protection on sign-in.

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Changelog — What's New | ExoticRx