Posted by:
BrianSmith
at Thu Oct 2 20:50:54 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by BrianSmith ]
Once again this forum (one of my few social activities since I quit drinking a year ago) has become rather dull. So I thought I would try to shake it up with a new topic. Post your best and worst burmese-related stories. I will start it off with mine:
Worst thing: When I was a kid in the late 70's I used to take my favorite female burmese everywhere with me, whether to the 7/11 to play Asteroids or to the rock quary to go fishing. She was the first burmese that I got when I was about 11. Her name was Burmuda. I loved that snake SO much it pains me to even think about this. Anyway,.. in the winter of 1978 I decided to let my little girl sleep with me. This was nothing out of the ordinary, I had done it many times. She was a pretty big girl by this time, at 2 1/2 years old she was right around 12 feet or so. As usual she went down around my feet. Well it was a cold night so I turned my electric blanket on high for her to keep her warm. What hurts the most is that I was trying to do what was right for her and it ended up killing her. When I woke up the next morning I immediately went to get my girl out and I found her dead. She had tried to get it, it looked, but the blanket had been tucked all around the bottom of the bed and she got trapped in the fold. I was devastated even though I didn't get right away what had caused her death. I was just a kid and not a lot was known back then and I didn't know that high temps caused snakes to die. When I figured it out some years later it pained me even more knowing that it was I that had killed her. There's no doubt in my mind that I would still have her with me today had that not happened. She would have been 27 years old this year.
The best thing: Last year I walked into my main snakeroom and found one of my female albino granites dead with a large rabbit stuck in her throat. I had just given it to her about 20 minutes before. Her body was twisted in a shape that could only be from attempting to throw the rabbit back up. I yelled and picked up her limp body and pulled the rabbit from her throat. I called to my wife to bring me a straw so I could breathe into her epiglotis or trachea opening. I located and tried to pump her heart with my thumb. The snake was limp and the heart was still. She was DEAD. My wife returned with a straw, but I couldn't fit it into the trachea. The hole had stiffened at a creased angle. So I shouted for her to get a syringe. When she got back with this I inserted the thin plastic end of the syringe into the trachea slit and blew hard. Her lungs filled with air and I pumped her heart. Nothing happened for over 5 minutes and I was getting distraught when I detected a slight movement in her lower body. She was beginning to move, but was not breathing on her own yet. After a few more minutes of breathing air into her her movements got a little stronger and I laid her down sideways in her cage. She lay this way unmoving, but her lungs were working and her heart was beating! I stayed with her for hours on end, making sure she kept breathing. Over that time her breathing became stronger and she finally rolled back mostly upright, but not quite. When I went to assist her she tried to strike, but her coordination was completely off and her head and neck mostly just wiggled weakly. I was never happier to see a snake trying to bite me, but I was terrified that she would be retarded for life due to a lack of oxygen to the brain for so long. She improved very very slowly over the course of the next few days, but she was not "normal" again for a few weeks. She wouldn't eat rabbits again and would actually run away from them when I offered them for several months. It was hell to have to feed her the equivelent in rats, but my snake was alive and that was all that mattered. Today she is a big normal girl in the cooling room with the rest of the adult pythons and boas set to breed this season. She does eat rabbits now, and has since about a year ago, a few months after the incident. After what happened I analyzed it and came to the conclusion based on the data that she had exhausted her saliva supply with the immense dense fur of the rabbit and she reached a point where she could not get it down any more and when she tried to throw it up it wouldn't budge due to lack of lubrication too. So once she began eating rabbits again, not only would I sit with her through the whole process, I always wet the rabbits first to aid her fur saturation process. And not taking any chances, after that I wet down ALL the girls' rabbits for them.
Well,. that's it for me. I look forward to hearing all of your interesting stories.
-----
Pebbles create ripples.
Ripples can become tidal waves.
Tidal waves sink ships.
The largest ships sink the fastest.
All Titanics are created equally.
[ Hide Replies ]
 Worst and Best things that ever happened concerning your burmese.... Here are my stories. Sory, long.... - BrianSmith, Thu Oct 2 20:50:54 2003
- RE: Worst and Best things that ever happened concerning your burmese.... He - thomas j, Fri Oct 3 10:24:31 2003
- RE: Worst and Best things that ever happened concerning your burmese.... Here are my stories. Sory, long.... - Antegy, Fri Oct 3 11:59:32 2003
- RE: Worst and Best things that ever happened concerning your burmese.... Here are my stories. Sory, long.... - markwhit, Fri Oct 3 20:08:20 2003
- RE: Worst and Best things that ever happened concerning your burmese.... Here are my stories. Sory, long.... - Carmichael, Sat Oct 4 11:09:09 2003
- RE: Worst and Best things that ever happened concerning your burmese.... Here are my stories. Sory, long.... - Shane_V.1, Sun Oct 5 14:47:31 2003
- RE: Worst and Best things that ever happened concerning your burmese.... Here are my stories. Sory, long.... - diseasedstran, Mon Oct 6 13:52:05 2003
|
