Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Allright fellas. Please keep an open mind. All the growth, feed and molt info is not provided. I'm not interested

My husbandry is very good so I like to think. I could really use some help here. Something was obviously over looked in maybe quarantine???

FYI: I am in contact with a very good herp vet but am unable to see him until next week.

BACKGROUND:
My current number of lampropeltis triangulum is 58.

Up to November 11, 2005(adult brumation begins), all snakes are healthy. Six years free of any ailment.

Brumation period 2005/06 Nov-Mar, weekly checks and water refills were performed. Brumation conducted in dark closet on concrete floor. Temp 68°-70°. Oil tank for home heating furnace is also located in closet. No fumes or odours have ever been detected near tank. Sucessful brumation completed year prior in same location.

I keep detailed records of feeding, weight and molts. I can let you look over the entire database. I have it set up so the growth rate can be seen on line chart at the touch of a button. Analysis of background made easy. Or i can bring in print-offs of individuals if requested.

I currently have 3 snakes in the freezer ready for investigation. If my assumptions are correct and lumgworm is the culpret; I can provide 2 frozen rats from 2 suppliers from late April.

The entire collection has been panacured May 24/06

Snake #1 MMSF02
Lampropeltis Triangulum annulata - Mexican Milk Snake - Adult Female
Born Aug 2004
Brumation begins Nov 11/05 weight 239grams, weekly checks and water refills were performed.
30 Dec - molt, 129 grams, deceased. Body of specimen dhydrated.

Snake #2 UMSM02
Lampropeltis Triangulum taylori - Utah Milk Snake - Adult Male
Age unknown
Brumation begins Nov 11/05 weight 64grams, weekly checks and water refills were performed.
Dec 30/05 63grams, Feb 01/06 62grams(end Brumation), Mar 9/06 58 grams, Mar 26/06 molt, Apr 12/06 51 grams,
Apr 20/06 49grams and deceased.
Snake continued with a regular feeding schedule up to Apr 20.

Snake #3 UMSF02
Lampropeltis Triangulum taylori - Utah Milk Snake - Adult Female
Age unknown
Brumation begins Nov 11/05 weight 53grams, weekly checks and water refills were performed.
Dec 30/05 55grams, Feb 01/06 54grams End Brumation, Feb 7/06 53grams, Mar 1/06 47grams, Mar 9/06 43grams,
Mar 19/06 39grams dhydrated and wrinkled. Deceased.

Snake #4 PMSF01
Lampropeltis Triangulum campbelli - Pueblan Milk Snake - Adult Female
Born Aug 2001
Brumation begins Nov 11/05 weight 261grams, weekly checks and water refills were performed.
Dec 16/05 268 Grams, Dec 16/05 268grams, Dec 20/05 260grams, Jan 11/06 273grams End Brumation,
Mar 1/06 275grams, Mar 9/06 262grams, Apr 10/06 240, May 2/06 196grams, May 6/06 196grams, May 29/06 Deceased.
Apetite was sporatic, viewed better on database. (In Freezer)

Snake #5 PMSM01
Lampropeltis Triangulum campbelli - Pueblan Milk Snake - Adult Male
Age unknown
Brumation begins Nov 11/05 weight 456grams, weekly checks and water refills were performed.
Maintained a consistant diet and weight through to May 12/06 445grams.
I allowed an experienced friend perform an necropsy and concluded the yellowish substance located in the lung was lungworm.
All other organs appeared normal.

Snake #6
Lampropeltis Triangulum Staurti - Staurts Milk Snake - Juvinile Female
Born Aug 2004
No Brumation period.
Maintained an increasing feed schedule and weight gain up to Apr 11/06 167grams, May 18/06 deceased. No symptoms viewed.

Snake #7
Lampropeltis Triangulum hondurensis - Honduran Milk Snake - Sub-Adult Male
Born Aug 2002
No brumation
Showed no signs or symptoms, Went off food Apr 23/06, May 27 Deceased (In Freezer)

Snake #8 NEW TO COLLECTION Introduced into collection Apr 20/06
Lampropeltis Triangulum hondurensis - Honduran Milk Snake - Sub-Adult Female T. Dunham Hypo
(In Freezer)
Born Aug 2004
No brumation
Apr 23 434grams, Last meal May 6/06, May 25/06 deceased.

A fecal is in process for various animals that were suspect and non-suspect.

Thanks Much.

Brian
HighWaterHerps

OMIT this paragraph, it was meant for my vet.
"I keep detailed records of feeding, weight and molts. I can let you look over the entire database. I have it set up so the growth rate can be seen on line chart at the touch of a button. Analysis of background made easy. Or i can bring in print-offs of individuals if requested."

I won't put my database on the internet.

I'm really sorry to hear that. That is terrible. Losing just 1 is bad enough. Where do you get your rodents from? Where do you live? Where were your snakes located? Were the ones that died in the same rack or close to each other? Any other snakes with the same symptoms? What kind of water do you use? Derek

Where do you get your rodents from? I get my rodents from a supplier in Gatineau, Canada.

Where do you live? Ottawa, Canada

Where were your snakes located? My basement.

Were the ones that died in the same rack or close to each other? Majority were close to each other in the same rack.

Any other snakes with the same symptoms? Yes, An adult male albino nelson.

What kind of water do you use? Well water, i drink it myself.

Obviously the best thing to do is a necropsy, which your vet will probably do. But here are somethings to think about before going.....

Are you sure there are no fumes in that closet? Carbon monoxide maybe? I would get a detector to be safe if you dont already have one.

Were these snakes ever in contact with each other?

Are they fed mice from the same source?

Do you feed frozen all the time?

Do you sanitize your hands between handling different animals?

Any weird bugs in the room?

Did they behave normally until death?

How good is the water you give them? Is it well water, municipal? Do you drink the same water they do?

Im a mammalian biologist so not all of this may apply to your particular situation, but they are just some things to worry about until you get the necropsy done. As for the lungworm, I am not sure about that. I would find it odd that a mammalian lungworm would be able to make it from the frozen feeder to your snake and still be alive and able to infect. Most helminth and nematod parasites need to go through an intermediate host (snails, insects) to infect the parimary host (reptiles, mammals). And they mammalian parasites usually are not able to infect reptiles. But as I said, I am not much of a reptile biologist so that just some educated speculation on my part.

Hope you get this figured out and let us know what the cause was, you have a huge collection and it would be a shame to loose any more animals.

Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles

Are you sure there are no fumes in that closet? I'm sure. I check regularly.

Carbon monoxide maybe? I would get a detector to be safe if you dont already have one. Just a tank. The furnace is isolated in opposite part of basement. Carbon Monoxide detector in place.

Were these snakes ever in contact with each other? The pueblans were together for breeding purposes. The others were isolated in individual enclosures in a rack.

Are they fed mice from the same source? They are fed from the same sourse but I did introduce feeders from a different source late april.

Do you feed frozen all the time? I feed frozen most of the time.

Do you sanitize your hands between handling different animals? Normally yes, but i will admit that I have forgotten on occasion.

Any weird bugs in the room? Nope.

Did they behave normally until death? Majority, yes. The female Pueblan withered away to nothing befor dying.

How good is the water you give them? Water is good.

I have heard that some rodent breeders feed their rodents dog food that has dyes in that can harm reptiles. You may want to check with your supplier to see if anybody else is having problems. Are any of your snakes wild caught. Maybe when you take your snake to vet also take a couple feeders with you. It is just a suggestion, but it may be worth a try. Derek

I intend have a necropsy performed on feeders.

Brian, Good idea to get the rodents tested, for your snakes to drop overnight like that, I highly suspect rodents to be the culprit!

As discussed, let me know when you get the necropsy report.

Good luck bud!

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Marc Bouchard
Selectively Bred Serpents
www.selectively-bred-serpents.ca

Well, it sounds like a lot of my ideas were wrong (which is good). About those feeders though, do you keep records of which snakes got the feeders from which sources? I dont keep that kind of info around (but I may start to now), but it may be usefull.

If that one with the lungworm was WC it may have had something else besdies the worm. My two cents is that its something with the feeders or that snake.

Hope the rest of your snakes are doing well (and that the nelsons recovers),
Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles

Do you keep records of which snakes got the feeders from which sources? I keep an extensive database of all feeding dates and feed item, weights, molts, breeding pairs etc. etc.

If that one with the lungworm was WC it may have had something else besdies the worm. My two cents is that its something with the feeders or that snake.

The suspected Lungworm Pueblan was a long term resident of mine.
Raised from hatchling. Was not WC.

My ideas are rapidly running out.

Did all the dead, and reguritating, animals get fed from the same source or both sources? If from the same source, did the frozen feeder come from the same order or were they ordered at different times. If the answers are yes, seems like a food borne illness.

Best,
Vinny
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“There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst this planet has gone on cycling according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” -C. Darwin, 1859

Natural Selection Reptiles

Did all the dead, and reguritating, animals get fed from the same source or both sources?

All were fed from the same source but some were fed from a secondary source. The secondary source was introduced mid april and was the first and only time it was used. I don't think the second source is the culpret; timeline is to short.

first let me say im sorry i know the feeling all to well;(,my problem turned out to be entameba invadens(spelling?) which came from w/c kings i had.the kings have been in my collection for 3plus years never a problem,but apparently carriers of this crap it spread like wildfire and was very devastating to my milks;(i lost allot in a short time period, to control it will require strict cleanliness(newspaper)as they can re-infect themselves very easily and flagyl(metranidazole) regiments.
good luck,,,,,,,thomas

Were any of the animals regurging their food?

If any more die, you may want to keep them in the refer instead of the freezer and have the necropsy performed as soon as possible after death.
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Paul Weaver
Carolina Herps

Were any of the animals regurging their food?
No, but, there are a couple good feeders that have regurged this week which is a new development. The dead animals did not regurge except for the Pueblan female.

If any more die, you may want to keep them in the refer instead of the freezer and have the necropsy performed as soon as possible after death. If the Nelsoni dies; i intend to bring it in immediately.

The reason that I was asking about the regurging is that it sounds kind of like crypto. If they regurge a food item, you can take that in to be tested as well (YUK!).

You mentioned lung worms -- one of my adults had that once and it just took 3 doses of panacur to wipe it out and none of my other snakes got it. The snake didn't really become dehydrated at all in the meantime either. I'm no vet, but it sounds like it's more than just worms to me. Crypto requires a specific acid-fast test of the fecal sample so you would need to tell the vet to look for this (ie. they don't always test for crypto when doing a regular fecal).

Good luck!
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Paul Weaver
Carolina Herps

Paul, I've spoken to Epidemic on the Indigo Forum(Jeff), His wife is a vet and when I've expressed some anxiety over Crypto he's politely reminded me that while a nightmare, it's not too common.You never know though huh? Hopefully a good necropsy can pinpoint the cause and help with a quick remedy.

Jeff is a good guy. He is right, it's not that common.
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Paul Weaver
Carolina Herps

Cryptosporidiosis is one of the least understood and misdiagnosed illnesses in reptile medicine. Many snakes harbor the disease with no ill effects for their entire life only to pass it on to another susceptible animal in a collection and then have it spread like wildfire. Researching literature on the subject can be confusing as well due to contradicting findings (ease of transmission, best methods for killing crypto, etc). Many vets perform floats to look for crypto and the results are poor at best (some positive animals go undetected and some others turn up false positive). ELISA tests are the most reliable method for detecting crypto (they look for antibodies). Most private keepers don't perform tests on animals coming into their collection; usually testing only if an animal is sick or dead (if they even do that). If the testing was less expensive, and more people were willing to test their entire collections, the presence of crypto would be found to be much higher than we all think. Keeping your husbandry protocols as clean as possible and putting new animals in quarantine is the best method of keeping crypto out of your collection. I hope this guy can test his collection ASAP and save the majority of his animals. It stinks to see someone who has obviously taken good care of his collection have sickness wipe it out.

Phil Bradley

I did not read the entire thread but read your post...and I am glad you said this. Parasites in general along with many snake ailments can be confusing and even vets I know disagree on things from one extreme to the other. Many people "think" they're snakes are 100% clean but if they did a float may find oodles of things going on in their perfectly healthy snake. Then when a vet does find things you'd think they want to treat so they can charge you, but in a few experiences I had they recomended leaving things as is since the snakes were fine. Crypto is a scary thing to worry about. But as you said, strict cleaning regiments along with clean food and water is seriously effective when keeping your snakes healthy. It's what we all should be doing for them anyway Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com

Sounds like a real nightmare. Sorry to hear of your calamity. Seems like nothing you've done wrong.After reading Thomas Davis' calamity also I am a little paranoid because I recently aquired some wc E.Kings(quarantined)for a breeding project. I get my frozen feeders also from a reputable commercial breeder and to suffer such a horrible loss because of frozen food source bogles the mind. I wish you the best. wish I could help, seems like your doing all you can. Please let us know what you find out with the necropsy. This could happen to any of us.
Bob.

All your responses are greatly appreciated.
I will keep you updated.

With guarded optimism; there maybe a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

An adult Mexican Milk female was treated with panacur and Flagyl May 12/06. She has dropped to 175grams from 203grams post brumation.
She has been quite active for the past 48hrs so I tried a f/t pinkie rat this evening May 30/06. She refused it so i offered 5 pinkie mice; she gobbled down the f/t pm.

Her location is in the same rack as where the others are/were.

I should have also mentioned that i retreated the Mexican Female with Panacur May 24/06.

Hey Brian, sorry for your loss/es...It really must be tough...am always afraid and concerned about feeding them with frozen or live ones from other sources or suppliers. I raise my own mice collection so that I know what these mice eat as well.. I only feed these mice seeds, vegetables, uncooked rice, and some guinea pig pellets...so that i know that they are free from any parasites or anything that would harm my snake collection when ingested.

I understand that a lot of people may not be able to have the space to raise mice for snake food. But if you can, I strongly encourage raising your mice collection. They breed fast and a snake is only supposed to be fed once a week anyway...so you really do not need to have a large colony of mice to sustain your snake collection...but am not sure how big your snake collection was though...but if you have like less than 20 snakes, it would make sense to raise your own mice for food to have that peace of mind that you are only feeding your snake the best food source (you).

That's just my humble opinion. Sorry again for your loss and I hope it doesn't dampen your spirits from starting to collect hondos and other colubrids again.

Take care,
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RAY

i know some folks might disagree, but i have reduced the vet work on the stable, long term parts of my collection. first, when you get frozen feeders, and again when you thaw them, look closely. if they don't look fresh, pitch them, especially if they look discolored on the nose and toes, or look refrozen. when i have any sort of feeding, regurge, or dehydration issues with an animal,and if i can rule out temps, i do the following. right away, i treat the animal with flagyl. i keep a little bottle of the stuff premixed with pedialite, [4p x 1f] with a label with all the breakdowns for dosage and snake weight written down so i don't have to translate and calculate every time i need to treat. get disposable oral syringes from a vet supply, they make oral treatment simple and sanitary. i also treat at half of recomended dosage. [if the dosage is 1 ml, i give them .5] flagyl is serious stuff, it can kill a snake if you don't measure carefully, but it is the wonder drug for colubrids. i'm no vet, but the rapid weight loss and dehydration you describe seems to fit the profile of ameabas in the stomach, which flagyl clears up instantly. i seldom have to treat an animal twice. also, if i treat an animal, i sanitize the cage, every time. if an animal dies, it goes out with it's caging. i'm not taking any chances over a five dollar sweaterbox.i hope this is helpful, and you figure out what's going on, and get it all cleared up quickly. kurt d.

Hi,
Last year I had a Honduran stop eating. It began to dehydrate and its skin was wrinkled. The snake lost a lot of weight quickly. I felt sorry for the snake. I took the snake to the vet to be put down. The vet talked me out of it. Blood tests were performed and it was determined that the snake had a viral infection. Something like IBD in Boas. After administering oral antibiotics and pain medication for about two weeks, the snake started to feed. The treatment was continued for about one month. A year later the snake eats well and is a typical body weight for a five year old honduran female. Hope this helps. Alan

Fecal results are in: HookWorm.

Had the vet for an hour today. I was lucky to have a vet with some knowledge and was ready for my situation.

The frozen specimens in the freezer were not much help unfortunately. That's where the bad news comes; In order to make sure that we have the main problem, we needed a fresh kill to send off for necropsy. The sacrifice was a juvi CH Cal King.

We'll have to wait for the results on that one.

In the mean time, the collection is on strict quarantine for in or out. The first of 6 panacur treatments is in process.

Thanks for all the help and support all.

Brian
HighWaterHerps