I have been hearing and reading some seemingly disturbing rumors concerning burmese pythons and namely morph burmese like albino greens (patternless). Some of these rumors are very extreme and seem very exagerated. Others seem as if they may have some truth to them. Disturbing truth. As a breeder or these burm morphs I feel it is my duty to get to the bottom of this issue and try to dig up as much facts on the matter as possible. Simply because,.. if there is any truth to these rumors I certainly do not feel good about providing the herp world and trusting customers with inherently defective snakes doomed to die in 4 years.



The rumors are a little varied. Some have it that all captive produced burmese are born with a sickness in them that causes them to die by about the age of four. Others narrow it down to a few specific morphs such as the afore-mentioned greens and albino greens implying an additional genetic weakness due to extensive inbreeding in creating the morph. And then there are a lot of other theories somewhere in between.



I personally don't completely believe any of them, but I do read them with an open mind and some of it has made me raise an eyebrow in light of what I do know about the burmese susceptibility to respitory infection, the animals I lost in the 80's to respitory infections, and the high number of recent deaths I have read about here and in other forums.



In addition to this when I last visited a large breeder of burms I noticed that there really weren't very many burmese adults in the enormous place. Hundreds of retics. Hundreds of baby retics. But very very few burmese. I remember wondering then if this breeder (who shall remain nameless) had experienced something like what I had experienced in the late 80's when I had a very contagious viral outbreak caused by a single female burmese. Within a couple of years it wiped out 75% of all my burmese.



But back to the rumors. If there is any truth to any of these rumors we can do some very brief surveys here and can begin to narrow down the myths and can single out the facts. I think that the best way to begin would be for every burm owner to post a list of their burmese pythons, how old they are, where they came from, and what phase they are,. as well as what burmese they may have had that died, what phase it was or they were, where they came from (important!) and how old they were. I think if we all take a part in this we can begin to form a clear pattern of just exactly what, if any, potential problems burmese may have.



As for me, since I got back into this business nearly 3 years ago I have had no problems with any burmese in terms of respitory problems or death. However,. all of my burmese are still under three years old, so they really don't apply as far as disputing the rumors other than that I have had no problems. I did buy some adult ceylonese that died of upper respitory infections shortly after getting them however. One on the third day. These came in with what killed them. In the 80's I had many burmese that were over 4 years old and I had experienced no problems until the fateful day that I bought and entered into the colony the single female carrying the deadly virus. And while all my burmese were healthy and fine until then, it should still be noted that they were highly susceptible to this virus and died rather quickly once they contracted it. I referred to it then as "Burmese Aids" because once they had it they were gonners, but it sounds strikingly similar to what I have read of concerning "Burmese Disease". Since I witnesed this virus firsthand I certainly know that it exists,. but I do not subscribe to the idea that the young are born with it as the rumors have it. Not until I see some evidence of it, anyway.



Again, please take a few minutes to post all the above information on your experience with your burmese. This study will benefit us all as well as all future would-be burm owners. Thank you.
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"If I had 365 enemies it would only take a year out of my life to settle all scores." Mia Miselfani

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