Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings:

Sorry to be a buzz-kill when most of the conversation here is about the amazing new clutches.....
I've just put a post up in the Herp Health and Breeding Forum, but I was wondering about getting some input here as well, please? (feel free to check out the thread on IBD and Respiratory Infections)

My bf and I have 3 adult red-tails, one of which was diagnoses with IBD, so all are presumed, and all three are presenting with an upper respiratory infection. We also have a ball python who has not been to the vet, and seems healthy. Fortaz has not worked, we're on to amikacin, and we've just been told that it's likely a fungal infection and we'll need to start nebulizing some other drug.

Other than heavy breathing, all are eating and otherwise acting normal. All the red-tails are rescues and only 1 is salmon, the others are nice normals. We had one accidental clutch, but we're not planning on being breeders, and at this point aren't bringing in other snakes.

So my questions are: given the bad prognosis, when should we seriously consider euthanasia? How do snakes with these diseases show pain and suffering? What are the most humane ways to end it?

Thank you all for your time.

Antigone

As far as being diagnosed with IBD I am under the impression that euthanasia is the only treatment. RI, anorexia, loss of motor control are all symptoms but if they are due to IBD I don’t think they can be treated effectively. I’m no expert so take my advice with a grain of salt but what concerns me is the "accidental clutch". If the parents have been diagnosed they may have passed it on to the offspring before they began to show symptoms. Where are these babies?

I agree with the other post.... Where are the babies? To me that is a huge concern. They may be carriers. From the books I've read it may take more than a year for symptoms to show.
From the literature I've read, pythons have less resistance to IBD than boas. They normally show symptoms much faster.

Some people put down their snakes by freezing them. They go to sleep....then gone. I don't know how much the vet would charge you. I would recommend putting them all down unfortunately. Even the babies if you still have them. If you don't have them, try to let the new owners know what has happened. Hopefully they followed quarentine procedures. The longer you have infected snakes the more chance you have of spreading the disease to some one else's collection.

I'm sorry for your loss.
-----
Travis Rose
Lazy S Snake Ranch
(859) 582-7310
1.0 100% DH for Snow Boa
1.0 Hypo, 66% DH Moonglow Boa
0.1 Normal Common Boa
0.1 Circle Back Normal Boa
0.1 66% DH for Snow Boa
2.4 Kenyans
0.3 Dogs (1 Full Pitbull, 1 Pit/Husky, & 1 Bernese Mt. Dog cross)
0.3 Cats (1 fat, 1 old, and 1 insane)
0.1 Very understanding wife
1.0 Toddler (WC...still bites and musks)

I agree - hopefully the babies have not been placed with owners that cannot be tracked.

What a horrible situation for you though - especially being rescues, your collection is exposed as a result of your compassion, and that's so sad...

However, I've read quite a lot on different methods of reptile euthanasia. Aside from injected methods that a vet would use which are humane, freezing is not always considered humane, even though it is an easy option for people. The theory is that death by freezing may be very painful for reptiles, since they do "slow down", they may be conscious when ice crystals begin forming in their tissue.

Another method in question was decapitation - since so many "rattlesnake roundups" use this method. Since reptiles are coldblooded and can survive on much less oxygen than mammals, it has been noted that a severed snake head will look around and move (or bite!) several minutes after decapitation, showing that the animal might be quite aware for a while.

Even death by C02 inhalation, which is considered humane for euthanizing rodents, may not be for reptiles, since they can survive much longer without oxygen, and would "strangle" slowly instead of being knocked unconscious.

From everything I read, if chemical euthanasia is not possible, the next most humane thing is "brain destruction", described as "crushing the skull quickly" or "piercing the brain cavity with a sharp instrument and destroying the brain". I know I could never do that, which I'm sure is why many people use the freezer method - it's the easiest for reptile-loving people to do themselves.

Just food for thought. I read a lot about this topic back when I was considering raising my own rodents (and was thinking about using a C02 system for that), and stumbled across a few papers on reptile euthanasia.

In any case, I'm very sorry to hear about the diagnosis. Are you going to get a second opinion, or is the evidence pretty solid?
-----
Lauren Madar - OphidiaGems.com
1.0 BP, 1.0 Hog Is., 1.1 Hypo BCI, 1.1 Surinam BCC, 0.1 GTP

What type of tests were done to say it is IBD??
Was it JUST SYMPTOMS or deeper testing.
I am sorry for what you are goin through.

Thank you all for replying.

We have not had tissue tests, just blood, however the vet says that the woman who saw the inclusion bodies has years and years of experience and would be able to tell these ICB ones from others. *shrug* Really I'm more focused on trying to get them over the pneumonia-- whatever the source--as that is the primary infection we're presented with. If we do start seeing motor or neurological signs....*sigh*

Thank you for the post about the multiple versions of euthanasia. One question I had-- are reptiles more resistant to being put down by drug overdose? how many shots does it usually take?

As for the babies, the inital reading that I had done was that they should have been showing symptoms already (they were born in February)-- but now I'm hearing that symptoms may not show for a year. We had sold them all, unknowing, to a breeder, and we called him immediately once we found out. He had had them in quarantine, but may have sold a few, again, before he knew-- and may not have a way to reach the buyers. He is in touch with a vet as well, and intends to have one baby sacrificed to run a necropsy on, to hopefully confirm the status of everyone else. If the tests are positive, whatever he has left will be put down. Last I heard from him, all the babies were still eating like pigs and not showing signs of anything. I hope it stays that way.

Thank you again.
Antigone

In all honesty in a case like this you should not with hold any information.

First the ONLY way to for sure know it is IBD is a LIVER BIOPSY. Blood tests can give hints, but that is it. No matter what your vet says.

Please disclose the name of the person who bought all the babies. And if they were in quarantine why were some sold, and how can someone NOT have contact with the people they sell to. Either the business practices and ethics of this individual are pathetic, or there is something not being told here.
-----
http://www.GilbertBoas.com/

The breeder has the right idea, and if the boa that is suspected to have IBD continues going downhill, you should probably do the same. If the baby the breeder is having tested is positive, it's pretty much garanteed that all the snakes have it. This may sound cold, but if any of your adults or the babies are comfirmed to have IBD, they should all be put down. I saw in your other thread that you were considering adopting out 2 of the boas, under no circumstances should you do this unless you can be 100% sure they don't have it. Even if you give them to someone you doesn't have any other boids, who knows where they could end up 5 or 10 years from now. If you can't keep them they should be put down.

Also it doesn't make much sense to spend what I'm sure is becoming a pretty significant amount of money to continue treating the RI if they have IBD anyway, so you should have a biopsy or necropsy done to determine if it is IBD. If you can't afford a biopsy, you could try putting the boa and the BP together for a little while then watching the BP for symptoms, as IBD progresses much quicker in pythons. Sorry if my post sounds cold and insensitive, but logically its really the only thing to do. Let us know what happens with the necropsy on the baby.
-----
MY COLLECTION:
1.0 '04 Columbian BCI
0.1 '05 Blood Python
0.0.1 Hypo Sonoran BCI
0.2 Ball Pythons

MY WISHLIST:
A Northern Blue-Tongue Skink
1.1 Brazilian Rainbow Boas
1.1 Hogg Island Boas
1.0 Salmon BCI
0.2 Columbian BCI
1.1 Sumatran Short-Tail Pythons
1.1 Borneo Short-Tail Pythons
1.1 Suriname BCC
1.2 Spotted Pythons
2.4 African House Snakes
2.4 Bearded Dragons
1.2 Rankins Dragons
2.6 Crested Geckos
2 ferrets