Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I got my first albinos of this race about 4-5 years ago and raised a pr up only to have them die of a strange mid body swelling at age 2(2-2.5'). I got another pr of cb06 and the female I have left has the same mid body swelling and has gone off feed. Anyone else have the same thing? I have never seen another king or milk with these symtoms and it has me more than curious.Jeff

Did you take them to a vet?

Sounds like a case of to much nigra

Hey I love black kings............GRIN!

Scott

Can you be more specific about "midbody" A picture or measurement would help.

I have seen snakes with fluid filling the pericardium (the sac around the heart). These snakes had the fluid aspirated by a vet and survived just fine. Never saw a recurrence or determined a definite cause. My suspicion is that it had to do with cage materials that had not been finished off-gassing before animals were placed inside a brand new cage. Neither of them were kings.

There can be lots of other causes of lumps, the most obvious being cancers or infections. Bottom line if you want the snakes to survive they should see a vet.

Call the breeder and ask if he has ever had this in his collection.

Are you using a homemade cage? Also what substrate are you using?

I have seen that kind of swelling around the heart you talk about. This is a stomach thing I am pretty sure. I have a bad opinions of herp vets(or lack of)in my area. I am a biologist so I have access to most everything except meds. I have dealt with enough LAMPs to notice a trend, and I was just asking if anyone else noticed the same problem.
I keep my animals in sterile caging, acrylic with paper towel substrate. If you know of anything in particular let me know, but I posted this because its my belief that this strain has some kind of inherant internal malady. I could be wrong, and I hope I am because I really like these,Jeff

strange.....within the last couple years,i recall someone had an amel. eastern up for sale on the classified section of this very same website.....i enquired further about them,only to be told they had a 'mysterious,slight swelling around midbody,but otherwise seemed perfectly healthy' or something to that effect;i passed.
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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

I'd be interested in knowing if they are from the same breeder.
With relatively new morphs, sometimes people want to get to market so fast they inbreed, and if they inbreed from inbred stock, it can really increase the liklihood of genetic defects impacting the line in a major way.
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3.3.2 L. getula californiae
1.1 L. getula nigrita
1.0 Boa constrictor constrictor (suriname, fostering/rescue)
2.3 Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

remember that morphes are just a deformity and that inbreeding can also bring out other deformities hidden in previous generations kinda like heterozygous. just a thought,C

They were not from the same breeder and they were about a generation apart. This strain is not widely kept and bred.J

could this be why we don't see many amel eastern kings? The mutation that causes the amelanism could be closely aligned to whatever causes the problem mentioned.

Possible that this strain of amel has some other genetic anomaly going on, perhaps showing up in the offspring but not the parents.
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Mark

that no one has considered infection or even Crypto yet..

To my knowledge there a several things that can cause mid body swelling. One (and most common) being bacterial infection and the other - and by far the worst possible thing, is Crypto. Both will cause the host to go off feed... And possibly die.

fingers crossed for 'ya man.

byron.d

I would have suggested either of those two. Not the greatest news to hear of course. A vet should be able to pinpoint what we cannot.
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

chryptosporidium(sp?) immediately came to mind with that lump but i think that takes them out pretty fast,no?
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"with head raised regally,and gazing at me with lidless eyes,he seemed to question with flicks of his long forked tongue my right to trespass on his territory" Carl Kauffeld

that have tested positive for Crypto., shown all the symptoms, and have lived for years.... The swelling is one of the very first symptoms but can disappear in a couple of weeks and not return for a very long time.
I do think that in most cases the snakes does die very quickly after symptoms first appear though.

I really hope it's not that.... It could totally devastate an entire collection.

byron.d

Crypto wiped out my collection 2 years ago.
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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
www.kingpinreptiles.com

I have a feeling that maybe the albino form lacks an enzyme that may lead to a higher probability of infection. I had the same thing happen about 3-4 years ago and it was never contagious(no crypto), and I havent seen these symptoms in any other morph or species. STRANGE.Jeff

I had one that developed a kink at 6 months, and died shortly thereafter.

I had two related hondurans die earlier this year with swelling in the exact same spot, approximately two inches cephalad from the vent. One was a much better feeder as a hatchling and thus grew faster. He developed this progressive swelling, went off feed and died. When the other one reached the approximate same size, the exact same thing happened which led me to beleive it was genetic and possibly the result of inbreeding as these were the cleanest normal hondurans I've seen.
Don

I agree with the crypto suspicion. If the animal dies, you can confirm crypto fairly easily. Cut open the stomach and take a sample by scraping the internal wall. Place this on a slide and examine it under a microscope. Crypto produce very characteristic spores which you can easily identify. There should be pics of the spores online or possibly in a reptile text you already own. Not exactly the kind of biology you were hoping to conduct, but it might solve your mystery.
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Rick Staub

Thanks, I hope she pulls through but I have to be realistic. Jeff