Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Being that my pythons were the only ones affected, the first suspicion of why they died would be IBD, obviously. But for it to happen all at once, within hours, basically without symptoms is weird.

Is there a chance that, since the snakes were cooled, that their slowed metabolism could have slowed progression of the disease, then being warmed caused them to all have simultaneous affects?

All there is to do now (besides extensive cleaning and moving stuff) is to wait for the results of tissue cultures. However, I don't think I can stop my head spinning in the meantime. I am not going to sleep. I just want to figure out where I went wrong, and what I need to do next........

email me chonjoepython@yahoo.com asap.
joe

OK. Thank'y.

Please read my post on the original thread. Don't go waving the IBD flag untill you know for certain what your dealing with, as reputations have been smeared at the mear mention of Inclusion body disease. It is fatal in Pythons, but you would see obvious symptoms for a short period of time before death.

If you did want to test for IBD I believe the best way to tell for certain if this disease was the cause, you need to test the organ tissues, the liver I believe.
-----
PHLdyPayne

In your 1st thread you said "My herp room itself has been at 60 degrees, and I have had very good luck with keeping the python enclosures between 68 and 70. They have been cooled since the first week of October." Was there a warm spot in the enclosure? What was your heat tape set to on the affected snakes racks? Was the cage temp constantly at 68-70 or was that only the night time temps?
-----
John Vandegrift

68 to 70 was the cool end. I really don't think temps in those enclosures dropped below that.

There was a week that I was gone. I had my roomate watching the critters. However, the temps had been good before I left, and were the same when I returned. There were no major power outages reported whlie I was gone. While I don't know for sure, obviously, I have no reason to believe that the temps would have dropped that much during that week.

All I had her doing was making sure water bowls were filled, cages stayed cleaned, and everything stayed the same. All seemed fine when I returned from my trip. If they had gotten too cold during that time, doesn't it seem like the problems would have been immediate?