Nearly 8 years ago we (my gf and I) had four red tails boas and a burmese python keeping us company in our life. They were all rescues that we had been given when friends of friends of friends couldn't take care of them anymore and found out we were willing to invite them into our house.

After some unfortunate moving instances we discovered our three male red tails were actually one male and two pregnant female female red tails. When we moved from California to Maryland we had made the decision to house them all three in a walk in closet that I converted into a home for them.

Around the same time that we noticed we would be housing a much larger population of snakes we also discovered that the male was starting to get sickly. A little uri is what we thought so we put him in his own cage after taking him to the vet to get him some antibiotics. He wasn't getting any better so we switched to a nebulizer with medicine for him to breath in. I converted one of the unused terrariums into a "medicine chamber" for him to rest in while we let him breath in his medicine.

More trips to the vet including a lung flush were still leaving poor Midnight unhealthy and leaving the vets stumped as to what was causing the sickness. Several trips to several vets finally introduced us to IBD. He was still eating like a champ and very active but this was the only option that the vet could think of at this point.

By now, our two girls had started showing some odd behavior. Constantly keeping their heads in the air or just taking on odd positioning in their housing. One of them twitching and flailing oddly when we would handle her when normally she was cranky but never that erratic. Midnight was also showing signs of discomfort. After much discussion and not a small amount of tears on both mine and my girlfriends part, we ended up putting Midnight down and having a necropsy done.

It was IBD and according to the Vet our girls, who had lived with him, most likely were showing signs of it as well. And with babies born very soon after, the vet said they would also be carriers of it.

In the end, we had the vet put down both of the girls as well as all of the babies. All of the babies except one. The babies were born on February first, and though we hadn't had a chance to name them all, we kept one and named her Brigid, after St. Brigid whose day is February 1st.

With deciding to keep her we got rid of our burmese knowing that Brigid would be a carrier and thus there would always be a chance that she could infect another boid. In making the decision to keep Brigid we also knew we would be making the decision not to bring on any more snakes into the family while we had her. It was a decision we both knew was worth making.

The vet told us not to get to attached to her as she didn't expect Brigid to live much past 6 months. She's now a little over 7 years old and has been a wonderful part of our family. However, she's recently been showing signs of discomfort, star gazing, and erratic muscle behavior very similar to her mother. She's also started showing signs of the sickness that her father had. So, last night my gf and I talked into the night, eventually just crying together as we made the decision to put her out of her pain.

Sorry for the long book, I just wanted to share this with people who would get what my gf and I are going through.



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0.0.1 Red Tail Boa Constricter

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