Hey everyone,
Two nights ago my boa just suddenly died. She was a northen brazilian red tail, between 4 and 5 years old, about 8 or 9 feet and 40 or 50lbs. I've had her since she was a baby amd am at a complete loss on what might have killed her.
First of all my husbandry hasn't really changed since I got them four years ago. She has a roommate a suriname boa, I bought them together, both females with no intentions of breeding. They live in a 72' neodeshsa, with a radiant heat pannel and a helix thermostat. They were both good eaters and ate rabbits once a month usually, sometime twice depending on the size that were available. I clean the cage when ever they releive themselves. I use simple green on the cage and windex on the windows and generally let the cage air out for 10 or 15 minutes before puting them back in. The temp is usaully 83 to 84 on the cool side and can very a couple degrees depending on how much we use the heater at home. I use newspaper as a substrate, and have since I got them.
Now on to what happened on Tuesday night 11/25. I took both snakes out ot clean the cage, as I cleaned the cage I noticed Bridget was crawling around kind of eratic. I didn't really think to much of it at the time because she is always on the move and i figured she was getting ready for a bowl movement. So I put them back in the cage and returned in about a half hour expecting to find a big movement and another cleaning party for me. She was just laying there kind of awkwardly, I pulled her out and noticed it felt like the last 1/3 of her body had lost all it's muscle tone, like she was paralyzed, completely limp. Then she went into some kind of convulsions like she was trying to pass something or regurge it, flopping around rolling over and over. While she was doing this she had her mouth open, gasping and contorting violently to the point that I was worried she was going to break her own bones. This went on for a what seemed like and eternity but was probably on and off for 5 minnutes, then she died.
My girlfriend and I are at a complete loss, we love and care for our snakes dearly. I just can't understand it, I had her out two nights before and she was great, getting tangled in all of the furniture and knocking everything over in her path. She was so strong and to feel the last 1/3 of her body go limp like a noodle, especially her prehensil tail that usually would grab on to anything, completely limp. Anyway the body is in an ice chest on ice and,I'm taking it in tomorrow so they can do a necropsy and hisopath samples. The thing that baffles me is that nothing has changed in my husbandry, no new cleaning agents, carpet cleaners anything I've back tracked everything and can't think of one thing. Now I'm worried sick that our suriname Sloat might come down with what Bridget had, because they have lived together since we have had them.
Has anyone expereinced anything similar to this? Is this IBD, or some kind of infection in her nervous system, or an aneurysm of some kind. I hope the body preserves eonough to get an accurate necropsy so I can find out what killed my snake. Again any thougths comments or suggestions woul be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Chris
