Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone,
I know I hardly ever write in here but I just lost a female ball today and am very confused. My set up is great I have a large collection and have posted my setups and pictures of the kids before. However, this female I have had only since May. I let her settle in a few days then she went into a shed, that lasted till the last week of the month and when she was done I started to offer her food, however she would not eat.

Now I have had ch before and I know patience is a virtue and she hadn't lost any weight so I wasn't worried. Today was just one of those days that I was offering prey (ft rats) I opened her sterilite box and there she was dead with a pool of blood by her nose. I am sending you the link of her setup and what state I found her in. The ambient temp this morning was 87.9 and as the pictures show she wasn't loosing weight at all. Last night she was fine I had changed her water and she was active and even struck at me, now her stomach was very green and so was her neck and her eyes very clowdy. As you will see in the picts blood was pouring from her mouth, notrils and eyes.I am really worried that this was IBD. I just pulled her from quarantine over the weekend too becasue she seemed totally fine and it has been two months and besides the not eating she shed, drank, and was active as normal.

Any opinions would be great I saved the body in the freezer and am going to the vet anyway but I am just so damn curious as to what this was. It really looks like something exploded inside her and that was that.

Thanks for any help here is the link
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/draconusv69/album?.dir=/7da5&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos
Link

ER...my thought on this would be hemmorragic septicemia. This is a build up of bacteria in the bloodstream due to filth and poor living conditions. The symptoms could include : Open sores on the skin, hemmorraging internally, anorexia (due to illness), lethargy, sudden death, and others. This is what it sounds like to me. It is very possible that the infection started where she was from and she carried it (like reptiles do) with out symptoms until it killed her. I dont know about ibd because it usually takes only 6 weeks to incubate before symptoms surface. She would have been stargazing, showing signs of RI, disorentation, etc. That is my thought, but a necropsy would never hurt to be on the safe side.
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"i wasn't born with enough middle fingers"

1.0 ball python- Azazel
1.0 columbian boa- Brooklyn
1.0 JCP-Milton
1.0 red blood python-Hiss
1.0 peach phase thayeri-Sancho
0.1 creamsicle corn- Pandora
1.1 hognose- Pricilla and Odd
0.1 russian tortoise- Manja
0.1.1 leos- Boji and Kodama
0.1 beardie- Indie
1.0 BTS- Griffon
0.1 Iggy- Sunny
0.1 pacific parrolet- Mishka
1.1 cats- Cairo and Oberon
1.4 ratties Rizzo, Bree, Blitzkreig, Raisin, and the Runt (R.I.P. Willard. )

They won't be able to do a proper necropsy if the body's frozen. You can see physical trauma, but if there was bacteria or anything to look for on a cellular level, that gets destroyed in the freezing process. The symptoms still may be enough for them to guess at a diagnosis, though it doesn't sound like IBD to me either.

I had a rosy boa that died the same way, The "vet" (was not that familiar with herps but he is my uncle and knows my snakes) told me that a artery popped and there was no illness at all just one of those things that cant be prevented. I cannot remember what it was called but i will let you know if I can. But my rosy didnt have green, it had yellow-brown markings that appeared to be under the skin just before the vent.

hope this helps and like I said my uncle is not a herp guy but is a vet and he might be wrong.

Tony Butler

Thank you everyone, boy was I glad to read this before she froze all the way ok she was a little stiff but still soft in the middle I pulled her out the freezer and just got back from dropping her off to my local vet who actually is really good with herps. His office was closing they will keep the body chilled and I will know sometime on Friday what happened. Thank you all again for the info and such. I do feel really bad but my vet also said there sounds like there wasn't much I could do or prepair for, but also that it didn't sound like IBD. So at least I feel somewhat better about my other snakes not being infected.

Thank you all again for you time. Will follow-up with what I find out later on.

n/p
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"i wasn't born with enough middle fingers"

1.0 ball python- Azazel
1.0 columbian boa- Brooklyn
1.0 JCP-Milton
1.0 red blood python-Hiss
1.0 peach phase thayeri-Sancho
0.1 creamsicle corn- Pandora
1.1 hognose- Pricilla and Odd
0.1 russian tortoise- Manja
0.1.1 leos- Boji and Kodama
0.1 beardie- Indie
1.0 BTS- Griffon
0.1 Iggy- Sunny
0.1 pacific parrolet- Mishka
1.1 cats- Cairo and Oberon
1.4 ratties Rizzo, Bree, Blitzkreig, Raisin, and the Runt (R.I.P. Willard. )

I had a wc female that died with the same sort of "greenish bruise" look on her belly area.. The vet told me it was due to parasites.. (I had her for about 2 months when this happened and she had refused eating up to that point)

Hopefully you find out it was due to a simple reason you couldn't do anything about.

Later
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Randall L Turner Jr.
www.aircapitalconstrictors.com
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Is usually the gall bladder. It almost always turns blue/green after death.

My vet just called me and said it was deffinitly a bacterial infection in one of the main blood lines giong to her heart causing swelling and it litterally swelled and burst. I will have exact bacteria type and such this afternoon when I stop to pick up the report. Just wanted to let everyone know. The funny part is I purchased this animal from someone that claimed it was treated over a seven month period with panicure and flagyl, now even my vet said what is strange is that the flagyl should have killed all traces of this bacteria so either to small and amount was used or from the amount of bacteria present in her blood it was actually never used and stupid me should have just retreated myself.

Oh well it really sucks.

thanks again everyone who took time to read and give their opinions.