Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I need some advice/suggestions...I have a problem... One of my p/h pied girls died either late last night or sometime today. She had good body weight (approx. 800 grams) and had a pretty good feeding response up until a few weeks ago (Feb 2nd to be exact). I cant explain what happened..she was alive and alert last night when I was giving her water but today I found her head draped into the water bowl. She usually ate frozen thawed mice and an occasional hopper mouse. Its really bothering me because I'm afraid it might be something wrong in my animal room. The only change in the room was the room temp went from 76-78 to 80-82 roughly ... the temp in her bin was about 80 degrees when I found her. it was about 74-76 last week. Because I am a basement hobbyist the temps had to be adjusted due to our record low temps but I thought I did a pretty good job taking care of that. I put her body and bin outside just incase I need to cut her open or have an exam done on her...What is your opinion on all of this?..and are their teeth retractable? When I opened her mouth I didn't see teeth just ridges..Broken off teeth? her mouth was pure white which seemed strange...The only other thing i can think of is i noticed her feces was flat instead or the standard roundness..(could have been laying on it though) but I didn't think too much of it because a few of my frozen thawed eaters tend to have "flat poop." I was originally thinking respiratory infection? but she showed no signs ...of anything! I don't know if im over analyzing but I'm concerned. another thing is every now and them my snakes knock their water bowls over and the newspaper molds a little or it makes a poop newspaper slushy eww.

I lost a few ball pythons (imports) about 6 or 7 years ago (no not at the same time) and I thought I saw teeth when they died ... that's what initially turned me off of ball pythons in the first place because captives weren't readily available in pet stores back then and they made poor pets. I've been really happy with the snakes I acquired over the last 3 years but this just flat out scares me. I know its a lot to read but I'm really going nuts over this. I appreciate any input you may have.

By the way no known wild caughts are in that room..I just need some ideas incase im over looking something.
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we're here because a hobby became an obsession... if only every one had this much fun

some days your the dog, some days your the hydrant...don't know who started this saying but it's the truth

about the only way to know for sure what killed your snake is to have an experienced herp vet do a necropsy on the body. teh body should be refrigerated, not frozen, as freezing does destroy cells and makes it virtually imposible to know what went wrong.

the only thing i can think of that may be the cause of death might be underfeeding...hopper mice are way to small for ball pythons older than a few months. i don't recall feeding anything smaller to my ball python, when i bought her last february [born summer '04] than adult mice. i switch him to hopper rats almost immediately and now she's eating small adult rats, but i feel these may be a bit small for her now.

the white mouth could be due to the simple fact it's dead and blood doesn't flow anymore to the tissues of the mouth. if it looks cheezy, could be an advanced case of mouth rot.

best t hing to do is get a necropsy done, then you will know why she died. sorry to hear about your loss.
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PHLdyPayne

she was being fed f/t retired breeder mice as well as occasional hoppers that i had surplus of...(i got tired of my mouse colony and fed everything i had...they were healthy i just got impatient with burnt out breeders and fed off everything..i have a new productive group now. ).... She had great weight ..she was an 04 .. weighing in @ over 800 grams...nice and plump girl.it wasnt mouth rot i can confidently say that....either way its a depressing situation.
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we're here because a hobby became an obsession... if only every one had this much fun

some days your the dog, some days your the hydrant...don't know who started this saying but it's the truth

I have NEVER had any luck with those things. HIGH in fat, and 80% regurges when I've used them. I have found nothing good with those HUGE breeder female mice and I avoid them like the plague.

I have over 100 frozen male and female retired breeders (large not jumbo) but I was really going nuts trying to figure this out and now im getting paranoid about every possibility now I am only using rodents I breed because I was not happy with what I got at the pet store last time. For the last several months I have been working on a rodent colony that way I know what goes into my pets... I'm finally getting into production to the point I can feed off some thank God! I'm really trying my best to understand what happened and take preventive measures even if it means being a one man operation...rodents snakes, etc., don't want to pay the price for a flaw in someone else's product..meaning sickly mice. I just finished doing an autopsy on my snake and im no expert but I would say it was a kidney problem...it looked as if there was a little internal bleeding and the kidney looked pretty dark and gross...I never cut a snake open before but if I had to take a guess .. that would be it
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we're here because a hobby became an obsession... if only every one had this much fun

some days your the dog, some days your the hydrant...don't know who started this saying but it's the truth

it would have been better to pay a qualified vet to do the necropsy...there are alot of tests they could do you cannot, which could really determine what happened. even if the kidneys are odd looking, they may not be the actual cause of death. diseases and parasites may cause discoloration of the kidneys, or, that could very well be the normal look of snake kidneys.
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PHLdyPayne

I have had to deal with ONE regurge in all my years in this hobby and it was a large retired female breeder rat of mine. It was pretty bad and did some lasting, but not permanent, damage to my favorite snake. I chalked it up to my bad judgement thinking she was just too big for him to keep down, but now I read this. Thanks for the input, makes a little more sense now.

Noone wants to deal with a regurge, despite the horrible effects on the animal, I simply threw out my guy's entire enclosure because I coulden't even attempt to get rid of that stench (he kept her down for 2 days before she made her last appearance). Thanks for helping some of us avoid future problems!
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"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are." - Kurt Cobain

"You laugh at me because I am different; I laugh at you because you are all the same."

~~ Krystal ~~

for your loss! I completely sympathize with how you are feeling right now having just lost my big girl last night (she was toppling the scales at 2200g). I would definitely take her into the vet so that they can try to identify what killed her. Best to know what you are dealing with to be able to prevent this from happening to any of your other snakes. Keep us updated. I will be keeping my fingers crossed that both our situations were just isolated incidents and that the rest of our collections are fine!
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Amber

Boas
1.1.0 Colombian (Austin & Ava)
1.0.0 Suriname (Aloysius)
1.1.0 Albino (Bo & Daisy)
Balls:
1.27.0 Normal (Tucker, Taylor,and lil' girls - RIP Eva)
1.1.0 Pastel
1.2.0 100% Het Pied
1.0.0 100% Het Albino (Bubba)
0.1.0 66% Poss. Het Albino
Corns:
1.1.0 Amber
1.1.0 Butter Motley
1.1.0 Crimson
1.1.0 Ghost
1.1.0 Hypo
0.0.1 Normal
1.1.0 Okeetee
1.0.1 Snow (Aiden)
1.1.0 Sunglow Motley
Milks:
1.1.0 Hypo Honduran (Damien & Lucy)
0.1.0 Pueblan (Marishka)
1.1.0 Sinaloan
Other:
2.1.0 Dachshunds - Dakota, Montana, & Cheyenne
2.0.0 Ferrets - Bailey & Keyta

well i decided to get her away from all my animals just incase but i think i may have ruined my chances of an autopsy because she's out side in the freezing cold and from what i hear cold temps can destroy cells ...and possibly alter the results ... i was thinking of opening her myself because im pretty good with a scalpel (summer pre-vet classses and high school biology) but i primarily worked with mammals and wouldnt know how to correctly identify a cold blooded animals anatomy and their problems. As far as reptile vets...their not common around here unfortunately. I know a few that will take on the task but after talking to them and taking a few pets there i wouldn't trust their jusdgement on anything other than dogs...hardly that either..
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we're here because a hobby became an obsession... if only every one had this much fun

some days your the dog, some days your the hydrant...don't know who started this saying but it's the truth

call it bad luck...keep a close eye on the rest of your collection. It could have been anything...several times over the last 20 years I have had animals die for no apparent reason. Never had any other animals die that where in contact with that animal it just died for no go reason. So...good luck with the rest of your collection...rememebr Ralph Davis had the Bubble gum die last year totally unexpected...turned out to be an RI.
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Michael Enriquez

Yeah I'm trying to shake it off myself but it really sucks when your starting from scratch with normals and possible hets like me and my collection is consisting of a small group of pets which I work with several times a day..thanks for the pick me up it did help and I have read about other people's post on their misfortune .. I worried it would happen to me just hoped it didn't.. its a taste of reality and one of the down points of the business. I guess its better to have got a taste of it now before I think I'm invincible and loose something and then I really loose my mind later. lol..It's a sad day for me today but it will make me stronger I suppose. If your wondering why i say "lol" so much is for some reason laughter lets me escape reality ....wow just think I went with out text books last semester in order to buy snakes and reptile food lol ...I even sold my stereo system for snakes...wow in a snake-oholic..yes i think I will call it bad luck and pray my other snakes do alright...after all I do have an interesting looking (unproven)spot nose and some other odd stuff
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we're here because a hobby became an obsession... if only every one had this much fun

some days your the dog, some days your the hydrant...don't know who started this saying but it's the truth

geeeesh, deaths all round. Begining to sound like a plague .I think I'd refridgerate it till I could get it to the vets for a necropsy. Keep a close eye on whatever else you may have and ANY change in behavior or appearance, I'd be takin' them to the vets too. Don't mean to sound paranoid, but this is spookin' even me.

Quig

I dont think this had anything to do with your snakes death, and i realize others have mentioned it but i start feeding small rats to aniamls around 300-400 grams. All of my 04s are breeding this year and weighing in over 1400 grams. If you have other snakes that are around 800 grams try feeding them rats, it fills them up quicker then 8 mice. Had you ever tried to feed her rats before? I do have one ghost female that weighs 1500 grams and will only take mice, and trust me i have tried everything to switch her over, shell eat 10 mice but will not touch a rat fuzie hopper pinkie or anything else that resmebles a rat. Good luck with the rest of your collection.
Kim