No you aren't imagining things. I should have mentioned in my earlier post that I have had the same thing happen. I actually would assume myself it's not as uncommon as we'd like to think. Realize that everyone ultimately dies from cardiac failure. When your heart stops is when you die. The heart becomes distressed it surely can and would swell in certain situations. Most of the ones I've noticed it in it wasn't swolen prior to death. I have also noticed it being swolen prior to death like you describe at times too. I think that whoever it was that mentioned it being genetic is probably right. It's probably attributed to the smaller breeding colonies that happen when producing the desired genetics. Thus why it's always a great thing to outcross them to introduce new genes to help remove these undesired affects. If you think about it the recessive genes we all target and want in our animals are ultimately birth defects. Ones that can easily end up fatal in the wild but for the most part have no adverse affects on them in captivity. Other recessive genes can directly be a heart that becomes enlarged as the animal ages. The gene could be as common as our most common albinos that could make it difficult to dispurse as we keep in breeding. Or even breeding closely related relatives. Scott seems to be on top of this because I regularly see him selling outcrossed animals for a premium price. Which is well worth the additional money paid for the animal but most people don't realize that. Hopefully in your case the cause was genetic that would mean it had nothing to do with your care (which I can't see any way that could have caused an enlarged heart anyhow) and will have no affect at all on the rest of your collection. I remember a while back you posted a picture of an albino red sided that you got for a birthday or christmas present. Was this the same one? If it is it was a terrible loss and I'm so sorry to hear about that. On the bright side it looks like the price of the albino red sideds are going down I figure it's directly due to the snow being produced. I hope you are able to replace him this coming year. Take care.....

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Hide Replies ]