Reptile & Amphibian Forums

just came back from vacation and found my buddy had died while I was out.

What a bummer.

He was 9 1/2 years old, and he was with me for 9 of those years.

He was a good size around 4.5' and thicker than my forearm. Never tried to bite, never snapped. Gentle as can be.

We turned down out the heat in our house to about 50 degrees (we live in Newton, MA). We thought this would be fine, since he had both an over head ceramic heater and underground external heat pad. Well...apparently, somehow both heat sources in his tank were turned off when we arrived home 13 days later. Interestingly enough, rigor had not set in yet, so I'm assuming he died within the past 24 hours.

Before we left he was "blue" and was set to shed in a few days. He had a meal in his stomach as well. He typically hibernates around this time of year--but was having the best feeding year of his life--eating a ton.

I do have 2 questions.

1) The temp in his enclosure was mid 50's. I don’t think that was cold enough to kill him (or was it?) You'd think he would just hibernate.

2) He had some very odd red coloration on him (under his skin, mostly on his stomach). Not sure what that was?

My guess is that the snake was going through some internal medical issues and the cold temp just aided in killing him.

Too late for an autopsy--I buried him this morning.

Your thoughts?

Food in stomach....no heat to digest...high 40's temps at night...and a few other things I could add but I wont.
Travis
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LAIR OF DRAGONS

How sad. If he was healthy for those 9.5 years I find it unlikely that he had internal issues that caused the death in addition to the cold temps. Yes, mid 50's is cold enough to kill a ball python. Especially since you don't know how long he was exposed to those temps. If the heating elements blew before he was able to digest that last meal then that would have just made things worse. Also, if you didn't have the two heating elements hooked up to a thermostat, then lowering the house temp would have lowered the temperature of the hot side of the enclosure by the same number of degrees. The heating elements alone, w/out a thermostat, just raise the temperature by a certain number of degrees from the base temp of the room. So any changes in the base temp of the room will affect the temperature on the hot side. Plus lowering the temp to 50 gave him a "cool side" of 50, and that alone isn't good for a BP to have to endure for 2 weeks. This is one of the reasons Ball Pythons are in no danger of becoming an invasive species. Even a brief encounter with a Cold Snap can kill them. Again, sorry for your loss, I really am, but please do learn from this. If you get a new Ball Python and take any future vacations, best to leave your pet in the care of a friend (at their house) rather than leave him unattended in a cold house. Not to mention, the thought of leaving a ceramic heater unattended for 2 weeks is scary. You are lucky you only lost your snake, and not your whole house...

.
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Slytherin Serpents

Have you been hugged by your snake today?

Ball Pythons
1.1 Het Caramels (Edward & Bella)
0.1 Normal 66% ph Caramel (Rosalie)
1.1 Caramels (Crookshanks & Bellatrix)
1.0 Honey Bee (Aragog)
0.1 Hypo Pastel (Nagini)
0.1 Spider 66% ph Hypo(Nymphadora)
1.0 Mojave (Lucius)
1.1 Pastel Lessers (Jacob & Narcissa)
0.1 Pinstripe (Arwen)
1.0 Pewter (Salazar)
0.1 Bumble Bee (Alice)
1.0 Bell Pastel (Jasper)
0.1 African Dinker (Esme)
0.1 Het Pied
0.1 Hypo Cinny (Myrtle)
1.0 Cinny het Hypo poss het Albino
1.1 Pastel Dinkers (Snape & Xiomara)
0.2 Ghana Dinker Babies
0.0.3 CH Dinker Babies

Corns
1.1 Normals het Amel, Anery, Charcoal, Diffused, Hypo (Romeo & Juliet)
1.0 Blizzard het Diffused (Tumnus)
1.0 Blizzard poss het Anery, Hypo, Diffused (Cotton)
0.1 Anery Lavender het Amel (Lucy)
0.1 Plasma poss het Hypo (Victoria)
1.0 Plasma poss het Albino
1.0 Hypo Plasma
1.1 Amel Motleys (Harry & Ginny)
0.1 Lavender Motley poss het diffused
1.0 Lavender Pinstripe Motley het Amel
0.1 Fire poss het Anery, Charcoal, Hypo (LeeLoo)
0.1 Normal het Albino, Lavender, Anery, Charcoal, poss het Diffused
1.0 Albino het Lavender, Anery, Charcoal, poss het Diffused
1.1 Sunkissed poss het Plasma (Arthur & Molly)
0.1 Dilute Blue Motley (Myrtle)
1.0 Pastel Motley (Nick)
0.1 Diffused Caramel
1.0 Blizzard 66% poss het Diffused
1.0 Pewter het Albino
0.1 Fire het Charcoal

Thayeri Kings
0.1 Leonis phase (Sidney)
1.0 Milk Snake phase

Milks
1.1 Tangerine Albino Hondurans
0.1 Hypo Tangerine Albino Honduran

Yeah...pretty much what i was thinking too.

I think its back to corn snakes for me.

--matt

Sorry 4 ur loss, that being said i would suggest u do some serious reserch on pythons(any kind) before u ever own anymore....bp's dont hibernate..!!

balls live 50 years
balls do not hibernate
you have no snake now I assume?..
please don't buy another one...

Thanxx...Good Luck....!
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........JY

Sounds like some bad choices were made and hopefully you learned a lesson - if corns is where your experience lies then that may be what you should stick with. 50 degrees is bad enough but with full belly leaves little opportunity for digestion and food rotting in his stomach could very well have been a contributing factor in his death.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

nihil facimus sed id bene facimus