(This was accidentally X posted in the Ball Python forum, sorry about that. Not sure how it got there O-o. I am kinda tired/frantic)
The story; at a herp show today I got three baby anery kenyan sand boas, and the breeder offered me two "loopy" ones free. The breeder was adamant that whatever was wrong with them was congenital, very much NOT INFECTIOUS, and that someone he knew had taken some similar babies and they had gone on to be healthy snakes once they got out of the deli-dish and into a better home. I don't see that he'd have any reason to lie to me; I'd already bought the healthy ones, these were just thrown in after as "free to a good, interested home".
These "loopy" guys have a tendancy to twist around as if they're always looking behind them, and will ocassionally flip onto their back when stressed (I think). When I got them home I put them in a plastic shoebox with vermiculite and they started to move around much more normally and soon burrowed underground. I fed them today too, to see if they'd eat (the breeder said all the snakes he brought to the show had eaten for him already) and one quite happily constricted and ate a pinky mouse. The other struck but missed and then seemed to lose interest, but considering the stress he's been under it's understandable for even a normal baby snake not to want to eat today!
Now that I'm home and researching this "loopy" phenomina, someone suggested it might be a disease after all; Inclusion Body Disease. I'm now very nervous... the snake's behavior *seems* different from the symptoms described (no rattling, no paralysis, no flacidity, one ate fine) plus the breeder seemed pretty experienced (an older fellow who was retiring, in fact) but I do have other boids in my collection and I'm very nervous. The new snakes are, of course, in their own isolated enclosures and I wash hands between handling them and doing anything else, but they are in the same room as my other two established kenyans as I live in a dorm. Can anyone tell me if I should or shouldn't be worried?! Should I try to go back to the show tomorrow and talk to the breeder? Should I try to get the blood test? Should I ask someone else to watch the snakes and get them out of the same roomas my others right away? It's very difficult as I'm moving out and graduating and stuff so I don't have a lot of free time during normal business hours... but I'll do what it takes if my snakes' health is at risk.
Please, any help/info/advice would be greatly apprecaited!!
