Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey guys,
I recently got the very bad end of a trade. Long story short all of my balls now have IBD. It is a sad and long process to clean that up but my question is how does it start showing in Burms? In my balls it started with a head wobble, then progressed to stargazing and of course the thrashing.
I have my burm under tight quarantine because he is the only one who hasn't shown symptoms, and I hope that he continues. He is usually kept on a different side of the room as the balls but now of course is on a different level of the house. He is showing no signs of head wobbling which leads me to ask how it actually starts in a burm. I don't want to harbor false hope and be disappointed, so I will assume he has it yet continue as if he didn't.
Any advice is welcome,
-Mads

IBD is one of the most over diagnosed diseases out there, but the symptoms you describe sound right. First off let me say we have no personal experience with IBD, but we did do quite a bit of info gathering because several years ago we had a boa showing the symptoms. It was never proven he had IBD, but we couldn't take that chance.

IBD is passed on through body fluids, so unless you are housing your snakes together or you have a mite problem your whole collection shouldn't be affected. Other ways to spread IBD could also be cross contamination by handling or feeding.

Boas are the carriers for IBD. Some can be carriers and never show symptoms. Pythons have no defense for IBD and all show the same symptoms you described. We even ran across one statement, when searching info on IBD, saying one test to see if a boa is a carrier is to house a python with the boa. If the python is still alive 3 months later the boa isn't a carrier. We don't recommend this, just thought it was an interesting statement.

Have you cross contaminated any of your snakes, handled one then another without washing between? Offered food to one snake, it didn't eat it, so you offered it to another snake? Do you have a mite problem?

I'm not trying to blast your practices, we are all guilty of some of this from time to time, especially the handling or the food. I'm just trying to find out how the IBD has spread.
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Randy and Michelle
Art In Scales
(719) 439-4199
info@artinscales.com

There is an article in the reptile mag this month about that. Have you taken them to the vet to be sure its that, and not some other bacterial thing? I have not read the article yet but glanced quickly at it.
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0.2 Rotts
1.0 Super Tiger (Dash)
1.0 Amel Retic (Mahola)
0.1 Ball Python (Cyeanne)
0.1 Red Tail (Memphis)
1.0 Coral Sun Glow Boa (Rodman)
0.1 Blood Python (Danica)
1.0 Green Ananconda (Prefontain)
1.0 Emerald Tree Boa (Bing Bong)

I did have it diagnosed by a vet. we are going to see another on Monday, just to get a second opinion.
We just moved, and during the moving process I moved the snakes, all in their seperate snake bags at the same time, tucked into various places of my coat and sweater. That is the only contact that I can accurately place, that was about a month and a half ago.
I have never seen a mite on any of my snakes. That's not to say that they aren't there, as it's been said that all snakes have some level of mite infestation whether or not we can see them.
I'm still crossing my fingers that it's something else, something that can be treated, and something that won't devistate my pets. We will see, I'll keep you all posted.