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Update on the brooksi I was babbling about last week... I was very sad when Fedex showed up here with a dead snake... Temps dropped down to about 10 degrees and the poor little guy froze to death on his way here... I'm still pouting...
Now I need to find a new snake... since I have everything setup for a new baby...

Sorry about your loss. I seem to remember you bought from a reputiable dealer..so maybe you can work something out.

This brings up another question I thought of just earlier last night. What do you do with the carcase?..throw it in the trash?..feed it to another king?..skin it and make boots later? I've haven't lost a snake yet (they're all very young yet) but trying to get rid of a full grown dead kingsnake or a hatchling sounds like a chore in itself. Also you could scare the hell out of the trashman/recycler if the bag opened..
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Richard Evans

no not THAT one

The last adult snake that died while in my care was so long ago that i can't even remember what i did with the body.. But, i did lose some of my hatchling alterna last year. I had a clutch of 10 eggs, 5 piped on there own & a few hours later when i cut the other 5 eggs open i found these 5 dead in there eggs..

I am not sure if it's the right way to do it but i flushed them. i have never fed a snake (dead or alive)to another snake so i never considered that.

I hope this does not offend anyone.. it was not my intention!

~ Mike

Man sorry for the loss, those would have been beautiful. Yeah, just good for someone to learn a lesson. You said you did pay 40 bucks for shipping too though so... But anyways, hope you have a good experience next time. I feel bad your first brooksi experience ended so quick, don't give up on them.
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-J.Hill

Oh I don't intend on giving up on the snakes, I'll just be leary about shipping them ever again... I think next time I'll take a road trip instead of shipping... Of course, I'm always lookin for an excuse to take a road trip... And what better excuse is there then to add another snake to my household?

"Update on the brooksi I was babbling about last week... I was very sad when Fedex showed up here with a dead snake... Temps dropped down to about 10 degrees and the poor little guy froze to death on his way here... I'm still pouting...
Now I need to find a new snake... since I have everything setup for a new baby..."

I have never lost a snake in cold weather. Usually hot weather is what kills.

Can you give us more info on the way the snake was shipped so that some of us sending snakes in cold weather can learn from your experience?

*From what city and state and to what city and state?
*Was the snake shipped overnight?.what time did the snake arrive?

*How thick was the insulation in the box..3/4"...1/2" ?

*From what city and state and to what city and state?
*Was the snake shipped overnight?.what time did the snake arrive?

*How thick was the insulation in the box..3/4"...1/2" ?

At the risk of pissing someone off, I'll answer these based soley on the fact that I do not want to see or hear about this happening to another animal.

The snake was shipped from Brooklyn, NY to Corsica, PA, priority overnight with FedEx... The package arrived at my door at 2:30 pm Wednesday, the 17th... I was here when it got here, and made the delivery girl come inside while I opened the box. When I told her I wanted to see if it was still alive, she got angry... (I'll get to why in a second... )

The box was approx. 8x6x6, and the snake was in a deli cup inside of it... there was no heat pad, and the outside temprature was 20 degrees at the warmest... There was 1/2 inch insulation in the box, but when I opened the deli cup and picked the snake up, he was completely limp and ice cold...

Now, back to why the Fedex lady was pissed off... There was NOTHING on the box or on the shipping label about there being a live animal inside... Her exact words were "We ship snakes all the time, if they're packed and marked properly, they don't die." She stopped back the next day to ask me if the snake had come back around and what I was going to do about it...

To make matters worse, the response I got when I let the seller know about the snakes death upset me more then the snake being dead (and I'm still very upset about that).

"What am I "going to do to fix it"... I can't help but read anger from your email... you got the snake for free! the snake wasn't packaged wrong... I will grant you that there wasn't a heat pack and I apologize for that as I didn't realize how bad the weather would've gotten... "

Now since I was only paying for shipping on this snake, I obviously can't complain that I want my money back, but I can [bleep] to no end about the fact that he put this defensless baby snake in a box to freeze to death... Especially after he was told that shipping cost was not a problem, and I was even willing to drive 6 hours to go pick it up myself so that it would get home safe...

Now, back to why the Fedex lady was pissed off... There was NOTHING on the box or on the shipping label about there being a live animal inside... Her exact words were "We ship snakes all the time, if they're packed and marked properly, they don't die." She stopped back the next day to ask me if the snake had come back around and what I was going to do about it...

Not neccessarlity true. It would be nice if Fed-Ex treated their packages differntly if it says, "live snake" on it but the truth is all the packages get treated the same way irregardless.

"What am I "going to do to fix it?"... I can't help but read anger from your email... you got the snake for free! the snake wasn't packaged wrong... I will grant you that there wasn't a heat pack and I apologize for that as I didn't realize how bad the weather would've gotten... "

Well he sould have put a heat pack in and left the big plastic bubble wrap out. That just takes away oxygen and anything else would have been better (styrofowm popcorn, newspaper ect) but I am sure that not what killed the snake. His is deli cup should have also been filled to the rim so the snake is not exposed and tossed around. By filling the deli-cup up all the way also gives the snake more security and causes less STRESS while being bounced about.

But I am just nitpicking here.

Now it would have been possible to come to this breeders defence if he put a heat pad into the box. It is possible to overheat a snake on one end of the country when adding a heat pack and kill it before it hits its destination end where it is freezing weather. Just last week we had 70f here while most other states were freezing. What does one do? The risk is always greater to overheat the snake than freezing it.

Also I beleive all breeders should gurantee "live arrival" but in your case (like you said) you don't have much room to complain. I doubt he sent you a dead snake and by giving you a snake says a lot about his character. I think it is really great he did that and maybe you should aplogize for your email and explain that it was in the het of the moment. I don't know this person but you should keep his idendity a secret because he could get all sorts of bad publicity for something that just happens when shipping live animals....either way he does not owe you a snake. He already spent time and energy building the box and sending the snake off.

Just to give you an idea of how easy it is for s snake to overheat compared to freezing... I have lost snakes when drivers put the box on the floor of the vans (UPS) above the muffler. This area gets very hot and will kill snake in a couple minutes. But Fed ex usually uses vans and they are heat/cold protected while the big open UPS tracks are not. It only takes about 95F to kill a neonate snake. Summer months are the worst. Usually this time of year is pretty safe if a heat pad is used and the proper percaustions are taking packing the snake and box.

but I can [bleep] to no end about the fact that he put this defensless baby snake in a box to freeze to death

A defensless baby?? I don't think he ever intended it to freeze to death. He would have nothing to gain. I think it was an oversight on his part and that is all. This will make him send snakes with heat pads from now on so I think he learned a cheap lesson. Unfortunatly it was your free snake he shipped. But think of the positive and how many people might have learned something about your snakes demise. This info posted here will help everyone ship snakes better.

The fact that I don't want this mistake bein made again is the only reason I answered your question... have no intention of telling anyone who was sending me the snake because I fully believe that this was an accident and that there was no intent on his part for this to happen...

I'm not angry with him, although I was at first, and I have no intention of bad mouthing him... it will accomplish nothing but bitterness... I just hope everyone takes this to heart and doesn't let it happen to another snake...

Excellent post bizkit. Thanks for sharing!

BTW. What kind of snake was it? It looks like a nice lavender brooks.

He was a very beautiful lavendar brooks... I got him free because he had some kinks, which btw I didn't notice when he got here, but then again I was very upset about him being dead...

I want to make it clear that I am in no way trying to make someone look bad... I understand accidents happen... I am only talking about this because I don't want it to happen to someone else... Also, I did leave out what happened after I received the dead snake, seeing as how I was only discussing the arrival of the animal... I appreciate his offer to replace the snake with 2 more, and hope very much that I did not anger him so much that the offer has been removed...