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and probably dead. I made an earlier post expressing concern about it regurging a meal. Now my concern has turned to pure fear-I walk in and see the snake violently thrashing around, coiling within itself, and flipping upside down.

First thought was "zonata disease"...but I mean, no right? Wouldn't I first see scuffed skin, etc and would't it take longer?

2nd thought- poisoned? But how? Live feeder mouse came from my work (petshop) which I know is clean. Maybe lizard meal was poisoned my insecticides? Not possible because area where lizard came from had tons of insects, amphibians, etc...

3rd- genetic defect? But why? Survived two months of cooling and even ate a lizard 4 days ago...

I am devastated. I Moved the other tanks on the shelf and bleached down the area, as well as threw out anything and everything the getula touched.

I am hoping, fingers crossed, this was not due to disease, but rather genetic defect within the snake...

I really hope nothing like this ever happens to my other snakes

Very sorry he died. What Doug said about poisoning from improperly digested food in gut may have been the culprit. I think that is what killed my little pyro recently, even though the last time he had eaten was over two weeks prior to brumation. Also he did not thrash about, just got weak and died a week out of brumation. I thought he had eliminated all fecal matter prior to brumation but maybe not. That could also be what happened to your getula. Like, the process of warming them up again encouraged the rapid growth of any bad bacteria as well.
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

Damn, Zach. I'm sorry for your loss. I know how you were looking forward to getting that critter. I hope u can figure out what happened.

Yeah, that's very discouraging and sad to hear. What I posted down below in the other post regarding this is just as I thought would probably happen since it was already violently thrashing.

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

The same exact thing happened to one of my snakes (a sunglow cornsnake). I took it out to clean the cage (it was in heavy shed), then placed it back. A few minutes later I noticed it was thrashing around, upside down it was crazy and there was nothing I could do. It died about an hour later. I've heard this story before. If you ever find out the cause of death please post it. I'm sorry for your loss.

Very sorry, a real bummer.

I have seen this a few times in the past with graybands and rosyboas. With the rosies, it turned out that the breeder had "dewormed" them with something, and I got them just 5 days later. So that was poisoning.

The graybands were cooled by the breeder, and apparently got some sort of infection. When they came to me, and I warmed them up, they had a high bacterial load as confirmed by a vet. 2 of 3 died. The last one I gave Flagyl and it pulled through.

Unfortunately these things are tough to diagnose. If you know the breeder, ask them what the conditions were like before you got it. I know it won't fix anything, but it may shed some light so you don't assume the worst.